Disappointing quali means only P13 for Max

Published on 04 July 2015 by Mike Motilall

Max Verstappen qualified thirteenth for the British Grand Prix. During the qualifying, in which he complained a lot about lack of grip from the rear tyres, he was not able to make it through to the third part. The 1:34.502 he noted was a bitter pill to swallow for the Scuderia Toro Rosso-driver, having been high on the leader board in the free practices before the qualifying. He will have to play catch up coming Sunday in order to be able to grab some points at the end of the race. Lewis Hamilton was able to seize pole position in his Mercedes, his team mate Nico Rosberg and Felipe Massa in the Williams are starting tomorrow from second and third. This qualifying was steeped in a lot of drivers getting stripped of their times.

“I am very disappointing. I don’t know what exactly is going on: the whole weekend we have been competitive, but the minute we start qualifying, we started suffering from issues with the balance of the car”, Max explains to Verstappen.nl. “I was having a lot of oversteering so the good lap times were lacking. The car hasn’t changed much since the third free practice, so we will need to find out what happened. Everyone was going faster in qualifying than in the free practices and I seem to be half a second slower. Today wasn’t our day, hopefully we can do better tomorrow.” Can it have something to do with the changing wind? “I don’t think so, because we have had to deal with that earlier this weekend.”

Still the Dutchman keeps his hope alive for a good result in the race: “The long runs were fine in the free practices, so hopefully we can benefit from that in the race”. What are your plans for the race? “What I normally do: keep pushing and trying to overtake people.” During qualifying numerous times were deleted. What is your opinion on the close monitoring of exceeding the track limits at turn 9, having been penalized for it yourself? “I think it’s a good thing. If you don’t put rules in place, everyone will be cutting the track.”

Even before the qualifying gets on its way, there is a clear warning from race director Charlie Whiting: unless we are satisfied that a driver left the track at turn 9, Copse, for reasons beyond his control, having been forced off the track for example, every lap time achieved by leaving the track will be deleted. Apart from that, exceeding the track limits will be closely monitored during the race.

In the first part of qualifying we see Max head into turn 1 with a lot of sparks from under his car. Having been complaining during the third free practice about problems in turn 3, this time round he spins in the same corner. With this he loses a lot of time, but his second clocked lap is a 1:35.080. Good enough for eighth. The medium compound tyres however still need to be strapped on. But his time is deleted as he exceeded the track limits in turn 9. Sebastian Vettel, Pastor Maldonado and Nico Hulkenberg all get the same medicine. All these drivers need to start from scratch again and are in the dangerzone of not making it through to Q2.

The first lap that is permissible for Max is done in a 1:34.819, not good enough to keep him out of the dangerzone and he is also complaining about low grip of the rear on the radio. He barely makes it to Q2: he finishes in P14 in the first qualifying session. The difference with Felipe Nasr is just seven hundredths of a second. Ultimately, Roberto Mehri, Will Stevens, Jenson Button, Fernando Alonso and Nasr fail to make it through to the next session.

In Q2 Max starts on a fresh pair of mediums and does a 1:34.502, putting him eighth at that moment. But it doesn’t take too long before Romain Grosjean and Daniil Kvyat dive under that time. The Dutchman makes it to the pits and relays somewhat baffled that there is no grip from the rear of the car; I can’t do anything!” Then Maldonado goes wide again in Copse and his time is stripped once more. Raikkonen suffers the same fate. In a final effort to make it to Q3, Max heads out again on a new set of mediums; but he is not able to improve his time. “It is much worse than in the free practices. Every corner is different: I just don’t have any grip!”, the young Dutchman reports to his team from his cockpit.

Carlos Sainz makes the cut, he gets through to Q3 in tenth. Marcus Ericsson, Pastor Maldonado, Romain Grosjean and Sergio Perez, all accompany Max to parc ferme: they also will not be fighting for pole position.

In Q3 it is eventually Hamilton, in front of an ecstatic home crowd, who snatches pole with 1:32.248, the 46th of his career. Rosberg trails him with a 1:32.361. The gap to third position is quite considerable: Felipe Massa follows in 1:33.085 in his Williams. Valtteri Bottas in his Williams is fourth, in front of the both Ferrari’s. They are respectively fifth and sixth. Sainz in the STR10, is eighth with a 1:33.649.

Silverstone - British Grand Prix - Saturday 4 July

 P No Driver             Team          Q1       Q2       Q3     Laps 
 1 44 Lewis Hamilton     Mercedes      1:33.796 1:33.068 1:32.248 14 
 2  6 Nico Rosberg       Mercedes      1:33.475 1:32.737 1:32.361 14 
 3 19 Felipe Massa       Williams      1:34.542 1:33.707 1:33.085 21 
 4 77 Valtteri Bottas    Williams      1:34.171 1:33.020 1:33.149 19 
 5  7 Kimi Räikkönen     Ferrari       1:33.426 1:33.911 1:33.379 19 
 6  5 Sebastian Vettel   Ferrari       1:33.562 1:33.641 1:33.547 18 
 7 26 Daniil Kvyat       Red Bull      1:34.422 1:33.520 1:33.636 22 
 8 55 Carlos Sainz       Toro Rosso    1:34.641 1:34.071 1:33.649 19 
 9 27 Nico Hulkenberg    Force India   1:34.594 1:33.693 1:33.673 21 
10  3 Daniel Ricciardo   Red Bull      1:34.272 1:33.749 1:33.943 20 
11 11 Sergio Perez       Force India   1:34.250 1:34.268          14 
12  8 Romain Grosjean    Lotus         1:34.646 1:34.430           9 
13 33 Max Verstappen     Toro Rosso    1:34.819 1:34.502          14 
14 13 Pastor Maldonado   Lotus         1:34.877 1:34.511          16 
15  9 Marcus Ericsson    Sauber        1:34.643 1:34.868          13 
16 12 Felipe Nasr        Sauber        1:34.888                    7 
17 14 Fernando Alonso    McLaren       1:34.959                    8 
18 22 Jenson Button      McLaren       1:35.207                    9 
19 28 Will Stevens       Marussia      1:37.364                    9 
20 98 Roberto Merhi      Marussia      1:39.377                    8

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