Max Verstappen has described the “weird” feeling aboard his Red Bull while he was beaten to pole position for Formula 1’s first sprint race by his main title rival Lewis Hamilton at Silverstone.
Championship leader Verstappen had claimed the previous three pole positions this season, and he held a decisive advantage of seven tenths of a second in the sole practice session before British Grand Prix qualifying on Friday evening.
“Understeer in qualifying is slow” :: Max Verstappen
However, the tables turned in qualifying with Mercedes’ Hamilton topping qualifying for the first time in over two months despite failing to improve on his last flying lap after sliding wide at the final chicane.
With his final Q3 lap, Verstappen came up 0.075 seconds short of Hamilton’s benchmark and the Red Bull driver won’t start from the front of a race for the first time since Baku in early June.
“It just felt weird,” Verstappen said after qualifying. “The car was quite competitive, a lot of grip, but the corners where you had to attack, I just didn’t have front grip.
“But I didn’t really feel like it was front wing or set-up related. Just a very odd feeling with the front tyres. Didn’t seem to give me the grip.
“We need to have a look at what’s happening there, tried a few things but it wasn’t improving my feeling throughout qualifying.
“Understeer in qualifying is slow.”
Silverstone has historically been something of a Mercedes stronghold, with Hamilton winning six of the last eight races here and earning every single pole position in the turbo-hybrid era.
However, this season has often ripped up the form book as Verstappen has won at previous Mercedes strongholds like Paul Ricard.
“To be that close [to Mercedes] is very good for us, at a track where we know they’re very strong, so nothing worrying,” Verstappen claimed.
“Of course I’m disappointed, I wanted to start first but nevertheless, we have the sprint qualifying and then the main race to try get them back.”
Verstappen also revealed that the discovery of a leak was the reason for frantic work taking place on his RB16B in the moments before qualifying started.
He said the issue was “fixed in time” and was of no concern.
