Verstappen: I’m happy to be second

With his final run in Qualifying today, Verstappen in the Red Bull had set the benchmark time but a fired-up Sainz had other plans, beating the Red Bull by 0.016s. A feat that might have irked the Dutch ace but, instead, he was gracious in defeat and happy to savour a great sporting moment the sport was savouring, that Carlos, Ferrari and their Tifosi owned.

Speaking in parc ferme after a tense qualifying session at Monza, of Ferrari's Sainz taking the top spot for Sunday's grid with his final effort, Verstappen said: "It’s nice to see but of course, we’ll try to win the race. Normally we have a quicker race car, but let’s just enjoy today and then we’ll focus on tomorrow."

As for his final lap: "It was good, I think we made some good improvements compared to Friday. You could see in every Qualifying session it was very tight, so I’m happy to be second."

But he won't be happy finishing second to anyone on Sunday. Why? Because it will end his incredible run of victories. Winning the Italian Grand Prix will make it an unprecedented 10 GP victories in a row, meaning Verstappen usurps Sebastian Vettel's remarkable nine-F1-wins-in-a-row run, back in 2013, also for Red Bull.

Later, in the RBR report from Qualifying, Verstappen continued: “It was very close all the way through quali and Ferrari have been quick throughout the whole weekend. From our side, we did everything we could to be as competitive as possible.

"I was happy with the lap in Q3, so nothing really to complain about. It was just not enough for pole but we know we have a good race car. It is all about the race pace and if we have better race pace, like normal, we will try to put pressure on them.

"I am happy with how we set up the car for the race and hopefully that will pay off on Sunday. I know the win is something that could happen. If it’s 10 in a row that would be amazing, but we have to execute the race in the best possible way to achieve that," declared Max.

In the sister car, Sergio Perez was fifth, again not in Verstappen's league, as the three-tenths deficit in Q3 testified. The gap was similar throughout all three Qualy stanzas.

Perez lamented in the RBR report: "Today wasn’t a great day. Adding a new engine and missing a large part of FP3 today was not ideal as it meant that we didn’t get to run the soft tyres before going into qualifying, so we were less prepared for Q3.

"Overall, I don’t think we maximised our performance and showed what we could do today. The Team, however, did a tremendous job turning the car around in time for qualifying.

"We had a good Friday and great race pace yesterday but today we just didn’t capitalise on our performance. I am optimistic that we can still show our strong pace and we will do our very best to come through the field," reckoned Perez.

From the team side, Red Bull boss Christian Horner reflected: “A very impressive lap from Max to get on the front row. We knew from this morning that the Ferraris were going to be incredibly quick over a lap and in the end, there was only a couple of centimetres difference between the two of them.

"Checo recovered well from missing track time in FP3 and an engine change to line up P5 makes for an exciting race," predicted Horner, whose team and driver - Verstappen - are cruising to both F1 titles on offer in 2023.