Max Verstappen has declared Renault’s new qualifying mode was the reason for McLaren’s performance in French Grand Prix qualifying.
On Saturday the Red Bull driver finished just 0.009s clear of Lando Norris as he claimed fourth on the grid as McLaren got two cars into the top six for the first time in five years.
After several years heavily criticising Renault for their lack of power, particularly on a single lap, the irony was real then for his post-session explanation for the British team’s result.
“We are normally better in the race,” Verstappen said. “They have a power mode in qualifying, quite a strong one, so I should be alright.”
Indeed, Formula 1 later published the real-time comparison of Max’s lap compared to Norris which showed how much the Honda-powered RB15 was losing on the straights.
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The Dutchman also went on to suggest the close gap was simply a result McLaren overperformance and Red Bull struggling.
“They are doing a better job compared to the beginning of the season, they are catching up,” he said. “Of course when you are so far behind it’s easy to close that gap but to find the last few tenths is hard.
“Also in my final run in Q3 I think we could have been closer to Ferrari but I had a weird behaviour [from the car] in the last two corners so that was a bit of shame.
“When you look at last year as well it was not an easy track for us, especially with the difficulties we had this morning I think the car we had in qualifying was not that bad,” he claimed.
“But we lose a lot of time on the straight and also, having said that, from the car performance, we are not extracting the most out of it.”
