Max Verstappen lacked the ammunition to take on Ferrari or Mercedes in qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix, but was satisfied with fourth place and is confident that in race trim and smart strategy will play in his favour on race day.
A week earlier Verstappen ended his Bahrain qualifying in the wall, this time around he made no mistake and will line-up fifth on the grid, heading row three for the race.
After qualifying in Shanghai, Verstappen summed up his afternoon, "It wasn't too bad compared to Mercedes, Ferrari were just way too quick. Somehow they have found a turbo button on the straight because they are really quick and still in the corners, they are reasonably quick."
"In the race, they can’t use these engine modes so, based on the long run pace, we can be a lot closer to the guys in front."
"In the race, we should be closer on top speed so hopefully that will help a bit. We have to be positive still. A lot of things can happen and with the strategy, maybe it's a one-stop or two-stop we are still not sure. We know it is different to the other guys."
"We achieved a good car balance and feeling today so I don’t think we could have done too much more, I would say fifth on the grid is quite realistic and where we should have been. I don’t feel like we got the maximum out of the engine in Q3, I think there would have been some time to find if we had."
"We are losing time on both of the straights which is hard to make up in other areas of the track, we knew the corners would be important but it was not enough to make up the difference."
"We have a different strategy, it may be a one-stop or possibly a two-stop race and depending on temperatures and degradation things can change."
"Hopefully we’ll have a clean start and then we’ll have to see if we can get up the field and secure a podium," concluded Verstappen who crashed out on lap two of the Bahrain Grand Prix a week earlier.
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