“This is the round, this is the round”; so a Red Bull mechanic moving his fingers nervously on the shoulders of a colleague followed on the monitors Max Verstappen in the last lap of Q3 in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia in the penultimate Qualifying of 2021. The Dutchman had recorded the record in the first and second sets, accumulating a significant advantage over Lewis Hamilton. At the last corner, however, the disaster. The Dutchman lost the rear finishing the lap ingloriously against the wall to the desperation of him and his box.
The statistics speak for themselves: Verstappen is not a monster in Qualifying. The active pole positions are 23, but it is in the race that the two-time world champion transforms given that there are already 39 affirmations on Sunday, almost double compared to pole starts. This does not mean that Verstappen has not lacked some feats on the flying lap in the past, such as for example at Spa in Belgium in the rain in 2021, an occasion in which an amazing George Russell with the Williams was inserted between the Dutchman and Lewis Hamilton .
In Monaco last Saturday Verstappen signed a pole position who stole the eyes of several insiders. Colleagues also followed the end of Q3 with concern on the monitor, Nyck De Vries applauded lively, Alexander Albon also did not hide his amazement while pointing out that Fernando Alonso had not had such a brilliant third sector. The hot Red Bull driver declared that after the reliefs of the first two sectors he knew that in the third he had to give everything, not electing Monaco as his best qualifying of his career.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner he commented on his driver’s performance as follows and with a little romanticism he highlighted that from his point of view it is as if Verstappen had closed the Jeddah lap in Monaco in 2021: “In the first sector Verstappen equaled his best time and in the second sector starting from the Loews hairpin he started to improve – Horner’s words reported by the newspaper racingnews365.com – at the Porto chicane he was very quick in changing direction and from then on his lap definitely came to life. He was sensational at the Piscine and from the Rascasse onwards he touched all possible barriers. The approach was pole position or block, that’s for sure. In Monaco he concluded the tour that had almost closed two years ago in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia“.
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