Max Verstappen admitted that his pole position for Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix felt like redemption after last year’s “disaster” at Monza, after he defeated McLaren duo Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in a thrilling qualifying session.
The Dutchman left it late to deny Norris the top spot on the grid, producing a 1m18.792s lap at an average speed of 264.681 km/h — the fastest in Formula 1 history.
Verstappen and Norris’ presence at the head of the field promises fireworks on Sunday, with championship leader Piastri and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc starting directly behind the pair.
Reflecting on his turnaround in fortunes, Verstappen recalled Red Bull’s struggles at Monza last season, when he qualified only seventh and was left languishing seven tenths behind Norris.
“It was good, it’s always tough around here, low downforce, easy to make mistakes on the braking or on entries because you have to commit, but with low downforce that’s not always easy,” commented the four-time world champion.
“Also you know the closing speeds in certain corners to hit the apex perfectly, but I think that final lap was pretty decent and to get pole here for us I think is big.
“It’s not always been a good track for us, especially last year was quite a bit of a disaster. So this year much better and very happy too to be first.”
Progress in set-up direction
Verstappen suggested that Red Bull’s RB21 has been steadily improving and that a fresh approach to set-up had paid dividends.
But he also warned against assuming that qualifying success would automatically translate into race dominance.
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“Yeah, I think we’re making improvements on the car, but also set-up-wise I guess we found a little bit of a nicer direction,” he said.
“We need to understand more why in the race sometimes it doesn’t really translate, like I had quite a decent feeling, but then it was really not good in the race.
“So, I don’t sit here and think that tomorrow is going to be fantastic in terms of how competitive we’re going to be against McLaren.”
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He pointed to the season-long challenge of maintaining qualifying form in races, particularly at a track like Monza, where overtaking is feasible.
“I think the whole season has shown that yes, sometimes you can be in front in qualifying, but in the race it’s very tough to stay ahead,” he added.
“Sometimes on tracks maybe where it’s difficult to pass, I think here you can race. So I expect it to be a tough battle, but we are making steps forward and that’s exactly what we want to do.
“We want to learn a bit more, that hopefully also helps us next year.”
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With Verstappen starting from pole, McLaren’s Norris alongside him, and Piastri just behind, the ingredients are in place for a high-speed showdown at the Temple of Speed.
For Verstappen, though, the first victory of the weekend was simply exorcising the ghosts of Monza 2024 – and proving that Red Bull can still bite back on a track where it once struggled.
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