F1 | Verstappen: “Happy with 2nd place, we have to be realistic”

A three-time world champion like Max Verstappen clearly aims for pole and victory, but on certain occasions it is also important to know how to look at the glass half full and find the positive aspects. The Dutchman closed the qualifying session with this mentality, settling for a second place that put him behind his closest rival, Lando Norris, but that put him in a position to precede the other McLaren of Oscar Piastri.

At this point, after a Friday that had given everything but certainties, a front row could be a precious result for Red Bull. At the end of Friday, Verstappen did not hide that the first day in Zandvoort had not yet given the answers he had hoped for, due to a car that was not yet balanced.

The night work helped to make the car calmer and, as often happens, the team went in the right direction from Friday to Saturday trying to interpret the data collected on track at the end of the first day. This work helped to find a more balanced car, especially because after the two free practices there was excessive understeer, but it was not enough to beat Norris, who pulled a beautiful lap out of the hat at the end.

“We lacked a bit of pace throughout qualifying, I tried to do my best, but I’m still very happy to be on the front row. It’s really difficult with the wind, with these gusts coming, every lap is different from the other, so you can’t take a reference. I’m happy with second place, after yesterday it’s a good result,” Verstappen said at the end of qualifying.

As explained yesterday, Red Bull made the fast corners of the second sector its strong point, but the difficulties on the straights and, more specifically, in taking and exiting the slow corners, including 10 and the chicane 11-12 where you have to try to attack the kerbs, weighed on the comparison with Norris.

“The balance is what it is at the moment, it’s not the easiest car to drive, turns 11 and 12 were a bit tricky, but the rest of the lap was not bad. We’ll see, hopefully tomorrow the car will be OK.”

Clearly the hope at this point is to try and overtake Norris at the start, attempting to get behind the Briton and lead the race at least in the first stint. Verstappen should still have a set of soft tyres saved between free practice 3 and qualifying, but he knows it won’t be easy to beat McLaren: “I would like to try and win, but when you’re more than 3 tenths behind in qualifying, I think we have to be realistic, I’ll just try to have a good race tomorrow”.