Had Red Bull trusted his first instinct, Max Verstappen would not have finished first in Formula 1 qualifying for the 2023 British GP at Silverstone.
Because “we had even considered [nach der ersten Runde in Q3] not to drive out again,” says Red Bull sports director Helmut Marko on “ORF”.
After said first attempt, Verstappen was already in the lead with 1:27.084 minutes. Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes and the other pursuers McLaren, Ferrari and Aston Martin were each more than 0.6 seconds behind. Red Bull thought they were safe.
According to Marko, there was another factor in favor of skipping the second attempt: “We still had a fresh set of tires, but we thought we’d save them for the race.”
Red Bull have doubts, and then …
In retrospect, Marko is happy to have sent Verstappen out again. “Luckily,” says the Red Bull head of sport, they didn’t decide to save on tyres, but instead went hunting for times. The result: 1:26.720 minutes, pole position.
Had Verstappen not driven this lap, McLaren driver Lando Norris would have been the fastest with 1:26.961 minutes.
In fact, in a direct comparison of the last laps after turn 3, Norris was almost a tenth ahead. At the end of the Wellington straight, Verstappen had turned the tables, but got the most lead from the fast corners after Copse and especially in the chicane before the start and finish. Norris only managed the target curve a little better than Verstappen.
Max Verstappen: Performance was just “okay”
The latter doesn’t exactly rave about his performance in qualifying. His last lap in Q3 was just “okay”, said Verstappen. “In some places, the increasing understeer and things like that got me a bit off. But with those [wechselhaften] It was always difficult to get the perfect lap under those conditions.”
For long stretches of qualifying at Silverstone, he “actually just tried to get my laps through,” Verstappen continues. In Q1 it had moved into the next segment in fifth place at 0.511 seconds, in Q2 with the best time.
The solid appearance up to that point almost led Red Bull down the wrong track, as Marko emphasizes in the “Sky” interview: “We sometimes trembled with Max. And the laps that we thought were enough were not then so.”
‘Favorite opponent’ Hamilton is far away…
“With these conditions, which were constantly changing, getting the tires up to temperature, not exaggerating the risk at the right moment, but still driving at the limit, that was a big challenge for everyone who made it into Q3,” explains Marko, himself a former racing driver.
“Fortunately, it was enough,” says Verstappen. If qualifying at Silverstone showed one thing, it was that “it can easily go the other way, and then you’re out,” said the sovereign world championship leader.
His boss is relieved not only because of the final result, but also because of the rivals directly behind Verstappen: “We are glad that someone else and especially not Hamilton is next to us,” said Marko on “ORF” with a view to the events in Silverstone from the 2021 season. Knowing Hamilton on the starting grid only on P7 is “already reassuring”.