Verstappen reacts to delayed qualifying: 'It's a real shame'

Due to heavy rainfall, qualifying could not take place on Saturday. The session has been rescheduled for Sunday morning. The Grand Prix has also been brought forward to avoid any postponement due to rain.

"“It is a shame we weren’t able to get out on track this afternoon and get the qualifying session done," Verstappen said after Saturday's race in Brazil. "In the Sprint our pace was quite strong but it was just a shame as we got stuck in the DRS train so we had to be patient and couldn’t really do much."

In the end, the Dutchman did manage to overtake Leclerc on the track. "We had a good run out of turn three so I could overtake and I felt like I could fight the cars in front of me and unfortunately we ran out of laps and had the yellow flags," the Red Bull Racing driver said.

Verstappen then received a five-second time penalty for being above the minimum time for a lap under the virtual safety car. Nevertheless, the Dutchman mostly sees the positive of the situation.

Verstappen looks back positively on the sprint race in Brazil

"It was a shame we got the penalty, however, for me it was a very positive race and we had the pace. We were in the fight which was good as this hasn’t been the case in previous races. The weather is pretty unpredictable at the moment and we don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. It will be very tight, but hopefully we will have another positive day," Verstappen said.

This article has been created in collaboration with Matt Gretton