Max Verstappen admits the issues impacting Ferrari were “good” for him and Red Bull, as he claimed second on the grid for the German GP.
Based on practice and Q1, it appeared the Dutchman may have been on course for a battle with Charles Leclerc for pole after the pair topped the timesheets.
Come Q3, however, it was Lewis Hamilton who he was battling for the top spot as the Monegasque had been stuck in the garage with a fuel system issue.
“It’s difficult to say [if pole was possible],” he said via Crash.net. “I think in Q1 you could see that Ferrari was quite comfortable and then you know that in Q3 anyway that the gap is going to be even bigger normally, so in a way, of course, it was good that they dropped off.
“But from my side from Q1 to Q3 I felt like I had a bit of a loss of grip. I felt in Q3 I just never had the grip as I had in Q1, of course, it’s getting warmer and it seemed like it was hurting me a bit more at the time.”
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Eventually, Verstappen had to settle for P2 between the two Mercedes’, a position he accepts was his likely optimum.
“We could have been closer, I wouldn’t have said we would have got the pole but I ran a bit wide and bottomed out and lost the rear, but still it was a good result,” he added.
After Sebastian Vettel had fallen by the wayside in Q1, it briefly appeared as if Max would be the big casualty in Q2 after reporting a loss of power on his first run.
“I tried a different mode for that run but as soon as I crossed the start-finish line somehow it cut out, and then you know that the lap is ruined so I backed off,” he explained.
“I went into the box just to check everything and then went back out again. Of course I had to use the other tyres (Softs) which is a little bit of a shame because I wanted to try and do the same as the other guys, but that’s how it is and we just have to live with that.
“But in the second run of Q2 and Q3 there was no problem.”
