Verstappen still confident of Sunday success in France

Max Verstappen might have lost out in the battle over pole position in today's qualifying session at Circuit Paul Ricard, but the Red Bull driver is confident he can still turn the tables on his rival in Sunday's race.

After struggling to find the right balance on Friday, Verstappen looked right back on form today and was fastest in final practice earlier, pipping Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc by over three tenths of a second.

But when it came to the first round of qualifying, it was Leclerc who came top in Q1 and then Sainz who was fastest in Q2, leaving Verstappen up against it in the final top ten pole shoot-out.

• Read also: Leclerc slipstreams to pole over Verstappen in France

Any hopes that he might pull it off were dashed when Ferrari played a team joker, using Sainz to punch a hole down the straight that allowed Leclerc to slipstream to a faster time.

Verstappen had no such help from Sergio Perez and ended up 0.304s behind his rival, settling for a spot on the front row of tomorrow's grid.

"FP3 is not qualifying, clearly!" Verstappen said when asked what had happened to the Red Bull's pace between the end of practice and the start of qualifying.

"Overall, I think we were lacking a bit in qualifying," he acknowledged. "Just general grip. It was a bit more tricky than I think I would have hoped."

"I think we still have a decent race car and hopefully of course tomorrow will come to our favour," he continued. "I mean, we are quick on the straights. Hopefully, we can use that tomorrow."

Red Bull boss Christian Horner said that without Sainz's involvement, Verstappen would have been a lot closer to Leclerc - although probably not by enough to take pole today.

"I think we might have been a tenth, maybe a tenth and a half closer," Horner told Sky Sports F1. "But I think just over that one lap, Ferrari had the advantage on us today.

"We've got two very different concepts of attacking this race track this weekend," he explained. "Ferrari are running a little bit more downforce, we're a bit more trimmed out, so it's all about tomorrow."

Although he played no role in towing Verstappen today, Perez still came out of qualifying in third place ahead of British trio Lewis Hamilton, Lando Norris and George Russell.

It means that he will be very much in the thick of whatever team tactics Red Bull come up with to take the advantage in the race. That's not a bad outcome for the Mexican, who has been on the backfoot in the build-up this weekend.

"It's been a good recovery," he said. "I've been nowhere the whole weekend to be honest. I've been struggling a lot.

I think probably it has been my worst weekend up to qualifying really but finally we managed to recover well."

Despite playing a crucial role in Ferrari's strategy in the final round of qualifying, Sainz will be at the other end of the grid when thew lights go out on Sunday.

The Spanish driver has incurred grid penalties dropping him to the back row as a result needing new components after his engine fire during the Austrian GP two weeks ago.

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