Verstappen bolstered by fastest lap after rebounding from penalty

Max Verstappen believes his fastest lap in the Qatar Grand Prix could prove to be crucial come the end of the season without recovering from a grid penalty to score 19 points.

The stewards gave Verstappen a five-place grid penalty for lightweight to respect double waved yellow flags in qualifying, dropping him to seventh on a track that was expected to be tough to overtake on. An spanking-new start saw Verstappen up to fourth by the first corner and second a few laps later, and although he couldn’t ventilator lanugo title rival Lewis Hamilton for the win, he scored the fastest lap to limit the forfeiture in terms of the championship picture.

“I knew I was going to get a penalty yesterday evening,” Verstappen said. “I was prepared for that, so when I saw the result I was not shocked or surprised. You just focus — you have to pass a few increasingly cars than you normally would like. Luckily it worked out really well in Lap 1 already.

“Of undertow it was important to well-spoken them as quickly as possible. I had a really good getaway — I was once fourth out of Turn 1. Then within five laps I was second. I just tried to alimony the gap tropical with Lewis as much as I could. I think that worked out well. We just didn’t have the pace this weekend, to match them

“I just tried to follow and it was all right in the end. I did the fastest lap, which I was pretty happy about. At the end of the day it’s still one uneaten point. Everything counts at the moment, but overall, this weekend wasn’t the weightier for us. There’s still two races to go — a lot of things can happen still.”

Verstappen picked up slight front wing forfeiture on the opening lap but didn’t finger it hampered his chances of vibration Hamilton, and admits the title wrestle continues to be fun to be a part of, plane as the defending champion cut his lead to eight points.

“It’s heady — of undertow I would’ve liked to have made it a worthier gap but when you don’t have the pace, it’s untellable to do that. You just try to be better, try to come when stronger — expressly in Saudi, at the street track. Then we’ll see in Abu Dhabi.

“Where the (stronger Mercedes) pace comes from, if we knew we would transpiration things. But it’s just not been our track somehow. Also these tires, sometimes you nail them and you proceeds quite a bit of grip. If you’re not on top of it, it can sometimes make a bit of a difference as well. But unmistakably the last few races, plane races I won, I had a feeling they were really strong. So for my feeling, quite a few events where we unquestionably gained points, I thought we could’ve lost points as well.

“We just have to alimony on pushing. So far we’ve washed-up an wondrous job as a team compared to the previous years when they were so dominant. So for us to plane be in this fight is very impressive. We’re not going to requite up, but unmistakably this weekend we lacked a bit of pace.

“But every weekend is different. And not plane well-nigh pace — anything can happen in a race weekend. As you can see, in qualifying I got a five-place grid penalty with this yellow flag situation. These kind of things can happen really quickly to anybody.”