Thursday 18 / April / 2024
Baku: Red Bull Formula One championship driver, Max Verstappen was clearly not the happiest person in Baku as he was denied another shot at pole position after red flags prematurely ended qualifying - for the second round in a row - in Azerbaijan.
Frustrated after qualifying third in an incident-packed Q3, the Dutchman cursed the "stupid qualifying". "Ah, just a stupid qualifying to be honest. Anyway it is what it is. Still P3, we have a good car, a good recovery from FP3 of course and everything was working out fine and all this shit is all the time happening. I don't care. In Q3... it's just unfortunate. It's a street circuit so these things can happen. Like I said, our car is strong so I just hope tomorrow in the race we can look after our tyres and score good points," 23 years old said in the FIA post-qualifying press conference.
Verstappen - who crashed in final practice on Saturday morning and lost out on 30 minutes of running - was denied a late shot at pole because AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda crashed in the final minutes of qualifying. Coincidentally, once again, Charles Leclerc was on the provisional pole at the time, so will start from P1 on the grid in Sunday's race.
Despite all the accidents that occurred in qualifying, Max is still looking hopeful to get a clear start on Sunday against Lewis Hamilton, in front.
"Yeah, I know. We are still up there. Of course I would have liked to start a bit further ahead, but it's still all to play for. As you can see, qualifying there are a lot of things happening, so maybe in the race these things can happen again. But let's hope for a clean start and we'll see from there."
"There are three different cars as well. It's always good to have that."
Verstappen starts on the second row, behind pole-sitter Leclerc and championship rival Lewis Hamilton in P2 - as the Red Bull driver aims to consolidate his four-point lead in the standings at Azerbaijan GP.
