Max Verstappen believes beating Valtteri Bottas could be his target as he prepares to start ninth at the Russian Grand Prix.
The Dutchman achieved what he considered the optimum in qualifying on Saturday, out-pacing the Finn to claim fourth before the five-place penalty for a new Honda ICE in Sochi.
Last year, Verstappen recovered from 19th to finish fifth at this race, but 12 months on, despite starting 10 places higher, his aspirations are the same.
“I think realistically P5 maybe P4,” he said via Sky Sports on where he wants to finish.
“We qualified P4 so if we had the pace then yes you can go forwards, but Ferrari is clearly too quick at the moment and Lewis [Hamilton] he’s starting a bit further ahead, they have a different strategy, so I also don’t really expect to fight him.”
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Having finished ahead of Ferrari by three-tenths of a second on Friday, Verstappen ended qualifying trailing pole-sitter Charles Leclerc by over six-tenths and Max put that difference down to purely one reason.
“Ferrari didn’t turn their engines up, [yesterday]” he said.
“Yesterday we were the same pace on the straights, today it’s more than a second we are losing on all the straights combined, so you can’t do anything about that.
“There are corners on this track, but a second, that’s too much.
“From our side, I think the last sector yesterday was very strong and today was more windy, so I had more oversteer through the last sector and somehow it impacts us more than others I think like it also has done in the past.
“Still, to split two Mercedes cars I think is the best we could do today," Verstappen concluded.
