Verstappen delights fans at Spa with 'perfect qualifying'

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Max Verstappen managed to out-qualify his Red Bull team mate Daniel Ricciardo this weekend, for the eighth time this season.

The pair will start tomorrow's Belgian Grand Prix alongside each other on the third row. Verstappen will be in fifth place, having finished nearly half a second faster than Ricciardo.

For the Dutch driver - who is unequivocally the star of the show as far as the huge number of fans at Spa-Francorchamps are concerned - the day was a definite success.

"It was good. I really enjoyed it, a bit like last year," he said. "Of course last year was second position, but my lap today felt pretty similar.

"It was on the limit. I got all the sectors together, and not very often you have that. For me it was the perfect qualifying.

"It couldn’t have been better to be honest as I feel I put everything together and got the best performance out of the car possible.

"I am positively surprised we are so close to Ferrari," he added.

But with the rows ahead packed out by Mercedes and Ferrari cars, Verstappen is keenly aware that he faces a difficult task in the race if the rain stays away.

Record-setting Hamilton dominates Spa qualifying

"Lewis was way ahead. But in the race I think we can be closer, so perhaps a good result is possible.

"It will be difficult to beat them," he admitted. "I think we can be closer so perhaps a good result is possible. Our strength is in sector 2 so we will work even harder there to improve a bit. But in general the balance of the car was great

"You need a bit of luck as well. Anything can happen on this track," he said. "It looks dry - hopefully it will change!" he added. "Let's wait and see tomorrow."

He said that the massive support from the masses of Dutch fans at Spa had really made a difference to his weekend.

"On my fast laps I was concentrating too much," he said. "But on my in lap I could see the orange crowd and smoke from all the fans.

"It's a good motivation because next to the track is all orange," he chuckled.

"This is amazing to see. As I left the pit lane there was a guy on the fence in all orange waving me on. It’s awesome!"

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.