Max Verstappen reflects on sealing pole in challenging qualifying session

Max Verstappen has reflected on sealing pole position for the Sprint race at Imola on Saturday afternoon.

The Dutchman is looking to bounce back from a second retirement of the season at Imola and has set himself up to do that nicely with him starting from the front for Saturday afternoon’s Sprint.

He has Charles Leclerc alongside him on the front row, of course, and so both men will be eager to try and get the upper hand ahead of the Grand Prix on Sunday.

It’s Max who holds the advantage currently, though, and he has said he’s very pleased with the result after what was a tough qualifying with wet and dry conditions:

“It was good out there today but also very easy to make mistakes, so luckily we mainly stayed out of trouble.

“We started on the slicks initially and then it started raining again, making the right call on how you wanted to prep your laps was key today and ultimately we chose the right one, so I’m of course very pleased with that.

“When I saw the yellow flags for Valtteri I immediately lifted so there won’t be any trouble there, it does cost you lap time but luckily the lap was still good enough for pole. Tomorrow looks to be dry and we haven’t really driven these new cars a lot in the dry here so hopefully in FP2 we can understand the car a bit more in different conditions.”