Horner on Max' fourth place: 'A strong qualifying'
Published on 27 April 2019 by Julien Lemmen
Max Verstappen qualified in a decent fourth place in Baku, while teammate Pierre Gasly has to start the race from the pit lane due to a penalty after missing the weight bridge in FP2. The Frenchman didn’t go out on track in Q2.
Christian Horner, team principal of Aston Martin Red Bull Racing, reflects after qualifying: “It was an interesting qualifying today after several red flags and Pierre did a very good job to go fastest in Q1. Max unfortunately flat spotted a tyre so needed to run again in Q1, which reduced the number of tyres available to him later in qualifying, but nonetheless we finished Q1 first and fourth. In Q2, we elected not to run Pierre as he will start tomorrow’s race from the pit lane due to his weighbridge penalty, but Max was able to go quickest during the session.”
“After the delay following Leclerc’s incident, Q3 finally got underway and with one set of tyres available, the best approach was quick-slow-quick which put Max out of sync with the drivers that had two sets remaining. Whilst he had the benefit of having a clear lap, he unfortunately didn’t have a tow as it would have been impossible to synchronise the different run strategies from the other teams. Overall, it was a strong qualifying with Max starting on the second row and Pierre’s time in Q1 would have put him sixth on the grid. A really encouraging display from Pierre and we now look forward to tomorrow’s race.”
