Engineer “cheered me on” for the Styrian F1 pole lap

After taking pole at the French GP last weekend, Verstappen said: “You’re always a little under your potential the first time around” [Q3] run “when the drivers have the task of getting through Q2 with medium-sized tires in order to gain an advantage in the race strategy before switching back to the soft tires for Q3.

After doing this again in qualifying at the Red Bull Ring on Saturday – as did Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas, who were the only other Q3 runners to try to get through on the tougher mix – Motorsport.com asked Verstappen in the post. Session press conference if this broadcast had been different this time.

But Verstappen had another explanation for why his pole win time, a time of 1: 03.841 seconds, was achieved in his first run in Q3 (although the 1: 03.919 minutes he scored in his second run was also good enough would have been pole to contest his sixth F1 career), which focused on the lap he was supposed to get back on the soft tire at the end of Q2.

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Red Bull and Mercedes usually send their drivers back on softs for the final runs in the middle segment of qualifying, just in case they drop out due to their times set on harder surfaces to keep their eyes on the top 10 -Shoot-out.

At this run on Saturday, Verstappen quickly withdrew from Turn 1 because he encountered traffic while braking on the ideal line, which, according to him, led to a warning from engineer Gianpiero Lambiase when he returned to the Red Bull garage prepare for Q3.

“I think my engineer actually cheered me on because he was upset that I didn’t do the sighting round on the softs,” said Verstappen. “He came on the radio when I was boxing and said, ‘I know you got stopped at Turn 1, but you should have pushed the lap to see how the tires work.’

“I didn’t answer him, but I think secretly it spurred me on to push a little harder on this first run in Q3.”

When asked how good he felt to get his second pole in a row and third place overall in 2021, Verstappen replied: “Yes, I think it clicked really well in qualifying – we made a few small adjustments and it seemed like that was a good step forward.

[It was just about] to get through the tires and to make sure that you would qualify for medium in Q2 – because here, too, the gaps to all other teams are quite small.

“So it wasn’t easy to get through Q2 with this tire. But we succeeded. [I’m] Pretty happy in Q3 – the first lap was pretty good.

“My second run was a bit worse just because I was last on the train, so I think my tires were a little too cold to start the lap. But it was still a good qualifying.”