Max Verstappen admitted that his pole position for Sunday’s Abu Dhabi GP felt “very weird” given the struggles he endured with his Red Bull car in free practice.
Verstappen claimed his 12th pole of the season by a margin of 0.139s over Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, the Dutchman locking in his result on his first flyer in Q3.
But up until Saturday evening’s shootout, the three-time world champion was critical of his car’s handling, complaining earlier in the day in FP3 of the RB19’s bottoming.
Verstappen’s grievances were such after the final practice session that Red Bull motorsport boss Helmut Marko bet €500 with team boss Christian Horner that the Dutchman would not secure a spot on the front row of the grid.
"Very weird. I mean, the whole weekend so far has been a bit of a struggle,” commented the 53-time Grand Prix winner.
"We definitely improved the car for qualifying. From lap one, it all seemed a bit more together. We could definitely push more.
"Around here already with the tyres, if you do little slides and whatever, it can cost you a lot of lap time. That was what was happening for us in practice.
"But then in qualifying, it all just was a bit more connected…
"I have no clue how good we're going to be in the race. Normally we are always quite decent. It's been a very special season. We've been enjoying it a lot."
Verstappen’s teammate, Sergio Perez, didn’t manage to extricate himself from the lower tier of the top-ten in Q3, the Mexican clocking in P9 at the end of the session.
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