Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen knew before the last sector that he was behind Fernando Alonso. A wild ride that touched walls brought the Red Bull driver the pole in Monaco.
In the meantime it looked as if there could be a big surprise in Monaco. Aston Martin’s first pole position ever and Fernando Alonso’s first pole position since the Formula 1 race at Hockenheim in 2012 seemed within reach.
But at the very end, Max Verstappen pulled another lap out of the hat and outperformed the competition. For the Dutchman it was the first pole position in the principality – and one that can still be very important in the fight for the world championship.
Because while team-mate Sergio Pérez will only start the race from last place on the grid after an accident, Verstappen has the best chance of winning from first place on the grid.
Red Bull driver Max Verstappen: “I had to go full throttle”
Things didn’t look so good for the Red Bull driver before the last run. When he went on his decisive lap, Verstappen was only fifth. “I knew I had to make it on the last lap because the others had improved,” he says.
But after the first sector he was already 0.146 seconds behind Fernando Alonso, who had secured the absolute best time. In the second sector, Verstappen’s gap to the Spaniard increased to 0.204 seconds. Was the pole position lost with that?
No, because anyone who looked at the time monitor noticed that Verstappen had nevertheless set two personal best times. But would he be able to catch up with Alonso?
“I knew in the last sector that I was behind, so I had to go full throttle in the last sector and risk everything to get the lap time,” says Verstappen.
Red Bull driver Max Verstappen touched the barrier several times
And that’s what he did: the world champion scraped through the swimming pool chicane and the Rascasse with millimeter precision, only to touch the barriers on the left and right in the last corner.
“I’ve hit the crash barrier and the wall a few times,” he says, so he doesn’t think it was one of his best laps. “But it was good enough,” said Verstappen.
Because in the end he crossed the finish line with a lead of 0.084 seconds. In the last sector, he once again set an absolute best time of 18.821 seconds. “I was always quite fast in the last sector, but I definitely pushed a little harder on the last lap,” he says. Alonso, on the other hand, was one of the slowest drivers in Q3 with a time of 19.109 seconds.
Verstappen was the last driver to cross the finish line. That was a big risk, because if another driver had crashed his car into the wall, which has often happened in Monaco and cost Verstappen the pole chance last year, he might only have started from position five.
Red Bull driver Max Verstappen: Outlap was “not ideal”
But Verstappen says: “That was simply our best chance to get pole. Every car reacts a little differently when warming up the tires over a lap. For us it was the right thing to do.”
Nevertheless, his outlap wasn’t “ideal”, as he says: “I had to drive a little slower than I wanted because unfortunately there were a few other cars in front of me that had canceled their lap and wanted to try again, I think. It definitely wasn’t an ideal start. Maybe that’s why I was behind in the first sector.”
Verstappen knows that confidence is what matters most in Monaco. “If you don’t feel like the tires are fully ready, then you don’t hit the brakes that hard in Turn 1,” he says. “Many factors come together to have a perfect lap here.”
In the end, however, an apparently perfect sector was enough – even if it wasn’t actually perfect with the small wall touches. But just enough, as Verstappen says.