Verstappen Stunned by Pole Despite "Horrible" Lap

Despite a self-declared “horrible” lap, Max Verstappen clinched pole in the Miami F1 Sprint, puzzled by his rivals’ performance.

Max Verstappen did not expect to find himself in pole position for the Miami F1 Sprint. The Red Bull driver made several mistakes during his lap and anticipated being overtaken by several rivals, yet he was pleased with how the RB20 felt under his control.

“To be honest, my lap was horrible. I don’t know, maybe it was hard to put everything together. It was already tough in SQ2, I improved in SQ3, and I felt good behind the wheel, I was comfortable,” the three-time world champion stated.

Lando Norris recorded the fastest time in the first two parts of the Sprint Shootout, while the Ferraris also seemed to have good potential. With his errors, Verstappen was convinced he would be behind several drivers, even though he was confident before the qualifying session.

“I don’t know, maybe the track layout plays a part. I was confident of competing for pole after Free Practice, but as the qualifying session progressed, I didn’t think it would happen. But here we are, I don’t know what happened to the other teams on that lap.”

Sergio Perez recorded the third fastest time behind Charles Leclerc, and he lamented not being able to make better use of the soft tire, which did not perform as well as hoped in this qualifying sprint.

“I think given that there’s only one fast lap on this soft tire, it’s a bit of luck to know what the car will do, and there’s no progression,” the Mexican commented. “I think we were a bit caught off guard.”

“Unfortunately, it wasn’t ideal, so we have work to do, but I hope we can sort it out tomorrow. The most important thing these days is to score points, the maximum points tomorrow in the Sprint, and then to focus on the race.”

However, he remains confident about the rest of the weekend: “I think we’ve taken the right direction, especially for tomorrow, so I hope we will have a better race pace and that we can compete.”