Max Verstappen said that he was anything but shocked by Ferrari snatching pole on its home ground in Saturday's Italian Grand Prix qualifying, the Red Bull charger "not complaining" to end up second.
It was an incredibly tight battle in the closing stages of the shootout, with Charles Leclerc popping to the top of the timesheet on his final flyer before Verstappen outpaced the Monegasque by 0.054s.
But an uproar from the Monza grandstands erupted when Sainz crossed the checkered flag just seconds later with a minuscule 0.013s lead over the championship leader, an effort that delivered to the Spaniard his fourth career pole in Formula 1.
"It was not really surprising, they were quick also last year," commented Verstappen.
"Also, when you look at their rear wing it seems like it's quite well optimised for Monza, whereas our wing - especially for one lap - is maybe not the best optimisation.
"But the race normally should be better, so nothing too shocking to be honest.
"You could see in Q1, Q2, Q3... every run you could see that it was very closely matched.
"From my side, Friday was a little more tricky, but I think we can't really complain."
Verstappen said that finding the right set-up compromise between the RB19's downforce and straightline speed was a difficult exercise, and one at which Ferrari appeared to have gained the upper hand over its rival.
"Here it was a bit more difficult to find the right trade-off with the downforce for us," he said.
"But I was very happy this morning. I thought the car was working well on one lap and on the long run as well.
"So yeah, I'm happy with second. You know at Monza it's always very tight. Sometimes you might jump ahead, sometimes you're just behind, but I'm confident for tomorrow."
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