Max Verstappen is keeping his British Grand Prix sprint victory aspirations in check and expects to be drawn into a battle with the cars behind him, as he considers front-row starters Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Antonelli to be a “bit quick” to challenge.
Verstappen put his car third on the grid for Saturday’s sprint race, lodging himself in the fight between the Mercedes and the Ferraris, albeit three tenths down on Hamilton and Antonelli at the close of the SQ3 runs.
The Red Bull driver was just over a tenth clear of team-mate Isack Hadjar, albeit five places ahead as the Frenchman only managed eighth in a competitive top eight order.
Although Verstappen was pleased with his performance, despite limitations with straight-line speed, he felt that Charles Leclerc and George Russell (starting fourth and fifth) should be able to match their higher-placed team-mates with regards to race pace.
“[Hamilton and Antonelli] look a bit quick and, team-mate related, they should be quick also in race pace,” Verstappen mused.
“If everything calms down a little bit, so for me, I think it will be more of a battle with the guys behind me.”
Verstappen added that he fell on the “good side” of a knife-edge midfield, where energy deployment was something of a deciding factor given the energy-poor nature of the Silverstone circuit. The Dutchman’s GPS data demonstrates that he deployed less on the exit of Woodcote and on the exit of Stowe compared to Hamilton and Antonelli, but used more at the start of the lap and along the Hangar Straight.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images
“For us, probably the outcome of SQ3 was…I mean it was very close, it could easily have been P3, or P6 or 7, but we were on the good side. We were a bit closer.
“I think we’re still not where we want to be with cornering maybe a tiny bit, but also with deployment and stuff. So there’s a few things to figure out to try and find more lap time. We’ll try to do that after the sprint.
“A little bit better [than practice] still not where I want it to be, I guess it’s also just a combination of how the layout is now, let’s say like that, with some limitations on the straight, and just getting the balance in the right window.”
Hadjar, meanwhile, was matching Verstappen through his lap – but didn’t carry enough speed through Club corner and ultimately ceded 0.138s to his team-mate, which proved to be the difference between third and eighth on the grid.
It was wholly unsurprising that Hadjar was disappointed with his effort, also noting that he indeed carried less speed through the first corner which put him behind through the lap.
“Yeah, it’s just very close,” he said. “I mean I’m eighth, the final guy of the top four cars, so it’s a bit disappointing. I’m missing out on third, because I was just not quick enough on that final lap, Max was able to do it, so I really want to look at what went wrong in the lap.
“I know I didn’t have the best start of it, launching it, so I know it cost me a bit of time.
“[Fine margins are] why it’s a bit more frustrating, because I know if I tidy up one or two things, then we can get there, but happy about my driving today, I think I’ve been on it since lap one, so that’s good, and hopefully tomorrow we’ll find even more time.”
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