Verstappen not convinced by 'lucky' pole: 'Things are far from perfect'

15:00, 05 Apr

byNorberto Mujica

Max Verstappen seems to have a little more hope after qualifying on pole for the Japanese Grand Prix, thanks to Red Bull Racing's many experiments.

Verstappen qualified on pole at Suzuka, and after the session, he shared his take on Red Bull's correlation issues between the sim and the on-track performance. "Honestly, I don't think it has to do with the tyres – for me, at least," he replied.

"It’s just the through corner balance that is very difficult to manage. But we clearly got it in a window where at least it was drivable to push."

Despite his 'lucky' pole, though, Verstappen still sees Red Bull have a lot of work to do to fix the issues with the RB21. "Luckily, it was enough for first, but it's still not... I don't say, “Oh, I'm first, now everything is perfect.” We still have clear issues that we need to solve and that's what we're continuing to work on." Additionally, Suzuka "is a very tough track for the car in general."

Balance problems for Verstappen and Red Bull in Japan

As is the nature of F1 these days, car performance is also heavily dependant on the nature of the track, and thus it changes from weekend to weekend. "Some tracks might work out a bit better for us, some might be worse. But it was clear that up until now this whole weekend we have been really experimenting a lot to find that drivable balance. At least it allowed me to push a bit more."