Verstappen confident in spite of DRS issue

Max Verstappen is confident Red Bull has the race pace to write-up Ferrari without a DRS issue prevented him fighting for pole position at the Spanish Grand Prix.

The first runs in Q3 saw Verstappen on provisional pole without Charles Leclerc spun on his opening attempt, but the championship leader hit when to go 0.3s well-spoken with his final lap. The Dutch suburbanite didn’t get a endangerment to respond as his DRS failed to unshut on the pit straight, but he believes the work carried out by Red Bull during FP3 made the car both quicker over one lap and largest on its tires.

“It’s difficult to tell . A lot of people improved on the second run, which is quite normal,” Verstappen said. “But my DRS didn’t unshut so it felt like a loss of power considering of the drag. It’s a shame — we could have at least had an opportunity.

“This weekend was a bit increasingly difficult for us to really find a good wastefulness in the car. brought updates which probably helped them a bit with lap time, so for us , it was a bit increasingly tricky, but let’s see tomorrow. I think our long runs were quite decent, so hopefully we can at least be a bit closer.

“I think what we improved over one lap won’t hurt our long runs, just the way we wastefulness the car. There was a bit increasingly potential for the one lap performance. We definitely did that well yesterday and this morning, I think. It was a bit increasingly tricky for us to really find a unfluctuating car and we have that.”

Verstappen says it isn’t imperative that he takes the lead on the opening lap, plane though he fought Lewis Hamilton nonflexible on the first lap one year ago.

“It can be important because, when I started here in 2016, I was fourth without the start and a crash happened. Last year I took the lead at the start and I still didn’t win. You need good pace in the race; you need good tire management virtually here. It’s really nonflexible on the tires with the high-speed cornering. If you get the opportunity, you go for it. If not, you don’t and you just settle and wait for the opportunity and hope that the package you have in the race is competitive unbearable to fight for the win.”