Verstappen: 'Five or six years since I last made such a comeback'

In fact, the Red Bull driver states that he has not experienced such a resurgence in a weekend for years: " I think in the last couple of years, this has definitely been one of the best, I would say. Because it's been a while that I've felt like we've been that far off. So it must be at least five, six years, because I don't really remember being able to turn it around like that," stated a happy Max after the qualifying session in Imola.

Red Bull took a number of updates to the northern Italian circuit this weekend, which Verstappen also said did not make it any easier to get the car under control. "I think all the time when you bring bring new parts to to the car it's not that you learn everything in the weekend you know it takes time and race after race every track also you need a bit of a different setup and so it requires different things from the car."

Verstappen hopes for better weekend performance in Monaco

Despite Max being on pole for Sunday's Grand Prix, the Dutchman does hope that the team can quickly regain the consistency of recent years in terms of setup. "I still think it's a very strong car that I feel comfortable with. Just somehow this weekend it's been very difficult to set it up, but hopefully we learn a lot from it when we get to the next race. It's always a tricky one, Monaco, to get everything. I'm out of the car because there's so many things that can happen. Hopefully it's a bit more consistent."

This article was written in collaboration with Sophia Crothall.