Max Verstappen admits he was relieved by the turnaround Red Bull made in the Abu Dhabi weekend after recovering from struggling in practice to secure pole position.
Having sat out FP1 along with team-mate Sergio Perez to enable Red Bull to fulfil its yearly obligation towards fielding two rookie drivers, Verstappen failed to top either of the two practice sessions he participated in.
The Dutchman complained that his RB19 car was “jumping like a kangaroo” during Friday’s second practice hour as he struggled to find a balanced set-up at the Yas Marina Circuit.
Verstappen’s side of the Red Bull garage was spotted making alterations to the suspension on the car as late as the closing minutes of FP3 as his problems persisted.
However, Verstappen was immediately on the pace once qualifying began, eventually edging out Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to land his 12th and final pole of the campaign.
“What a turnaround, because in practice it was not looking that good,” he conceded. “I was struggling a lot with the balance. Luckily I think we made the right changes on the car for qualifying because I think from lap one it all just felt a lot more connected.
“Around here it’s a lot about tyres and how they behave. If you have tiny slides here and there they overheat. So in qualifying it definitely felt all a bit better.”
Verstappen, though, denied that track evolution alone was responsible for his improved confidence with the car, noting that Red Bull’s problems were more substantial.
“Yesterday, in FP2, and today in FP3, it was all bad, he answered when that theory was put to him post-qualifying. “I don’t really think it had anything to do with that.
“Of course the track grips up a bit, but I think the issues I had were more severe than a little bit more rubber here and there.”
While Verstappen admits his troubles didn’t completely subside, the three-time champion explained that the revisions eased the unpredictability issues he was encountering.
Expanding on the setup changes, Verstappen elucidated: “It was just a bit more balance, it was just really unpredictable: oversteer, understeer. Then we tried to help the understeer, that became oversteer then we had oversteer, understeer and it just kept on changing a lot and around here you cannot have that, you can’t have any sliding.
“It was just not good to drive. It’s just a difficult balance and luckily for qualifying it was pretty much gone. It was still a bit there, but we could drive around it a little bit.”
With running in second practice limited by two red-flag periods, Verstappen is cautious regarding Red Bull’s prospects for the race amid the lack of long-run data available.
“I have no clue how the car will behave in the race,” the Red Bull ace commented. “I have not really done any long-running, so I guess we’ll find out throughout the race.
“But, I mean, so far, most of the races we have been quite strong. Tomorrow, I just have to ease myself into it, I guess. A little bit.”
Despite winning each of the last three races in Abu Dhabi, Verstappen acknowledges that the changing landscape in F1 means historical data will count for little on Sunday.
“It will help a little bit,” he noted. “But, of course, every year, your balance, or issues that you have to go faster, are a little bit different, so you can’t always relate fully to what you have done in the past. But it does help you understand a few things.”
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