Max Verstappen didn't dare let down his legions of fans by not taking pole position for his home race this weekend, the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.
While not entirely trouble free and without its scarier moments, the Red Bull driver ended up cruising to the top spot by half a second over McLaren's Lan do Norris in the final minutes of Q3.
The session had started on a wet track that saw Verstappen run off into the gravel on his first lap, warning him to be careful and not take too many chances until conditions improved.
"The biggest wobble we had with Max was when he went straight on in Q1 on his first lap," Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said afterward. "The next he got blocked.
"We had an eye on the weather hoping we weren’t going to miss out. We just needed to get one lap on the board and thankfully the next lap he managed to. He just struggled to get the temperature into the tyres initially."
“It was a very tricky qualifying," Verstappen explained. "Starting of course with the intermediates, but also the track surface was quite slippery," he said, referring to new tarmac that had been laid down in advance of this year's race.
“We’ve been to some other places already where we’ve had wet races and stuff, but I think this was the first time we came here with this kind of condition,” he continued.
“It was all about putting your laps in but also staying out of trouble. I think we managed that quite well," he told the media in parc ferme after the end of qualifying.
However the situation changed toward the end with the rain stopping, the sun coming out and the track rapidly drying up, all of which forced him to review his tactics.
He originally started Q3 still on intermediates but soon switched to slicks even when the conditions caught out Logan Sargeant, who crashed to bring out the first of two red flags in the final round.
“I think we underestimated maybe a little bit with the wind as well, and then the sun coming out, how quickly it dried," he explained. "At the end when we could go onto the slick tyres, [but] it was one dry line in some places.
"It's all about experience and lessons you take forward. We had to risk it a bit, but at the end of the day it didn’t matter - we still did the right thing. That last lap was very enjoyable."
Verstappen insisted that the adulation he received from the thousands and thousands of fans in the grandstands hadn't put him under any extra pressure. "The pressure is always there to perform, but when you can pull it off it’s incredible!"
Verstappen is aiming for a third home win in a row tomorrow. It would also be his ninth victory in a row equalling a record set by his predecessor at Red Bulll, four time world champion Sebastian Vettel.
However he'll have to fight off Norris, George Russell and Alex Albon at the start, with his current team mate Sergio Perez not exactly well positioned to help him from seventh on the grid.
"It was a challenging qualifying today, with the changeable conditions and amount of red flag time," Perez said. "It was very tricky out there, especially towards the end and the strategy we took in Q3 was probably not ideal in hindsight
"I definitely wanted to be a lot higher up, especially for the race because it is not an easy track to overtake around.," he conceded. At the time we thought it was the best to do a double push but I think doing a single timed lap would have been better for the tyre.
"We just have to look forward now, we have a great race car, we had very strong race pace on Friday and in the simulations so hopefully we are able to make some good progress tomorrow."
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