Max Verstappen has acknowledged the threat posed by Red Bull’s rivals to his chances of winning the Canadian Grand Prix, despite taking a commanding pole position.
The reigning World Champion dominated proceedings in the final stage of qualifying, taking top spot by 1.2s over second-place Nico Hulkenberg in wet conditions.
However, the Haas driver’s five-place grid penalty promotes the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso onto the front row, with the Mercedes pair locking out the second row.
Ahead of qualifying, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner had pinpointed Ferrari as his side’s most likely challenger. But a poorly executed Saturday will see the two SF-23 cars occupy 10th and 11th on the grid.
Nevertheless, Verstappen has not ruled out Ferrari when discussing his contenders for the race win on Sunday, alongside Alonso and the two Mercedes drivers.
Asked who could stop him from winning for the second consecutive year in Montreal on Sunday, Verstappen answered: “Difficult to know. Fernando [Alonso] had a very good long run. The Ferraris were quite strong in the dry, including also Mercedes so it’s a bit difficult to say at the moment.”
Whilst other drivers faltered in changing conditions that proved troublesome to read from a tyre standpoint, Verstappen’s side of the garage sailed through without encountering any major troubles.
The two-time World Champion has credited his team for making all the right calls, citing that their inspired call to place him at the end of the pit lane before Q3 had got underway proved vital in him securing pole.
“Overall, I think we just had good communication with the team, you know, throughout Q1, Q2, which I think is the most important, and we were clear with what we wanted to do,” he said.
“And then in Q3, of course, it kept on raining, so it was very important to be out there quickly and get the laps in. Of course, I had to wait a long time at the end of the pit lane. You know, the tyres are cold, but it does give me like clean air and good vision, which I guess also helped to put the lap in.”
Throughout dry running on Friday Verstappen complained that he was unhappy with the balance of his RB19, and the rain is set to subside in time for Sunday’s race.
However, the 25-year-old asserts that the team already made some set-up alterations to his car immediately after practice which helped to improve the feeling.
“Well, I think it’s better already today,” he assessed. “Okay, it was in the wet, but the general behaviour of the car was improved.
“And tomorrow yeah, we’ll find out. I mean, the long run still looked alright; we’re quite happy with that. But they’re always, of course, things that you want to look at and improve and that’s what we did.
“Maybe the one lap pace wasn’t fantastic. But that’s not what we are, of course, worried about tomorrow in the race.”
Meanwhile, it was another torrid qualifying hour for Verstappen’s team-mate Sergio Perez, who will line up a lowly 12th.
The Mexican failed to reach Q3 for the fourth time this year and the third race weekend in a row, meaning the 59-point gap between the Red Bull duo is likely to extend further.
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