Verstappen gives Norris a reason to be optimistic: 'This will be difficult'

Verstappen felt he was losing time mainly in the corners and on the straights. "We know that with our wing, you lose top speed, especially with DRS open. Yes, it's a bit of a handicap. We knew that. And that's something that we have to deal with on a track like this," the Dutchman told GPblog and others.

"But besides that, I always felt like the tyres were a bit of a struggle for us to get them in the right operating window. I do think that we did the best we could in qualifying with what we had, and then P5 is the result. We got a bit lucky with Lewis not putting a lap in, otherwise it would have been P6. But yes, I think we really maximised what we could."

Verstappen speaks of maximising in qualifying Las Vegas

Verstappen recognised that the car had improved significantly. "Yesterday I think we were more than a second off. And today, that's a little bit less. I also really feel like we optimised it as a team. But of course still too slow. But I think already more than half of that is already just on the straights. So that is just something that… There's nothing that you can do."

When asked by GPblog, the three-time world champion said he did have more grip than the rest of the weekend. "It was a bit better compared to all the runs that I did before, but naturally it looked like it was still not like the guys fighting for pole."

Verstappen does expect some difficulties due to the low top speed. "Of course, the wing is not the most efficient, but hopefully, when everyone has DRS closed, it's a little bit better. Because when you trim your DRS flat, naturally you have less of a DRS effect and that is what is quite painful in qualifying."

The long runs didn't look very good either. "In the race when you try to pass people you have less of an effect, so that will be a bit more difficult, but yes, hopefully we are just decent on tyres. My long runs haven't been really that good but we also made some changes to the car and hopefully that will help the tyres out as well," Verstappen said.

This article has been created in collaboration with Matt Gretton