Verstappen happy with 2nd place: “Most enjoyable car to drive” | FP

Happy with the second position

At the beginning of the season it would have been difficult to imagine Max Verstappen happy and satisfied with the 2nd place in qualifyingeven further behind the driver with whom he is battling for the world title. But that’s how it is. The reigning champion, currently 59 points ahead of Lando Norris, will start alongside the Briton in first place in the Singapore Grand Prix, but from second place.

All the satisfaction

For the Dutchman, it is a return to the front row since Zandvoort, in his home GP, before a brief crisis in results which at the same time allowed McLaren to overtake Red Bull in the Constructors’ standings in the final round in Baku: “I’m very happy with 2nd place today and it’s fantastic to start tomorrow on the front row. – said the #1, who was also in the spotlight this weekend for other reasons – Credit goes to the team for their hard work, they found some great solutions and made a lot of changes to the car overnight, which made a huge difference. The car was much more pleasant to drivewe could attack the corners more and today we really maximized our performance. I had a better feeling with the car and I continued to improve it, as yesterday was very tough. On paper, this is not a good track on the calendar for us, and we have our limits on pace, so this gives us hope for the next races to be able to do well. To get to the finish line today is an extraordinary result for qualifying”.

Still behind Checo

However, the difficulties continue for Sergio Perez. If Verstappen has the chance to fight for the victory, the road will be much more uphill for the Mexican, who was even eliminated in Q2 and 13th on the starting grid: “It was a very difficult session, Q1 was very nice, the progression we had with the tyres and the car, and everything was going in the right direction. – commented ‘Checo’ – the track was improving, but in Q2 it suddenly became difficult to do the lapI only found a tenth and we were struggling, especially with the tyres and the brakes. If anything, we were going slower, we were missing a lot of grip in the lap and we couldn’t find it in the right window. The way we use the tyres was quite difficult this weekend, so we still have a lot to understand. We come from a quite strong weekend in Baku and then we seem to struggle quite a bit here. Unfortunately we are out of Q2, it was not an easy weekend, I think we lost some potential compared to yesterday, so we have a lot to analyse. Overtaking here is very difficult, tomorrow we have a long night ahead of us.”