Max starting British GP from P4: “Maybe we’ll get lucky tomorrow”

Published on 15 July 2017 by Mike Motilall

Max Verstappen will be starting the Britisch Grand Prix from the second row. He qualified fifth at the Silverstone circuit. Due to a grid penalty that was handed out to Valtteri Bottas, the youngster will move up one position and will therefore start from fourth. Lewis Hamilton was supreme in his Mercedes in front of his home crowd, followed by Ferrari running Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel in second and third.

“We’re just too slow”, says Max after qualifying. “It’s not even worth talking about. Because of someone’s penalty, we are on the second row. We are not fast enough to keep up with Mercedes and Ferrari. We didn’t manage to get the car how we wanted it to be this weekend and we didn’t have the amount of grip we wanted, so that’s not ideal. We’ll try and keep an eye on Mercedes and Ferrari tomorrow. It’s hard to beat them purely on raw speed, but maybe we’ll get lucky tomorrow.”

As Q1 gets underway, it’s lightly raining; on the grand stands and next to the track umbrella’s start appearing. Max is, together with his team mate Daniel Ricciardo, the first who is ready to roll at the end of the pit lane, with a set of the intermediates strapped on. But there are also some teams that send out their drivers on the slick tyres. According to Max it is obviously too wet for dry weather tyres, he firmly assures on the radio. And he is proven right when numerous drivers head back in to swap their slicks for the inters.

Max is the first to get a timed lap which is bettered moments later by his team mate. Not much later, the latter parks his car trackside. “I have a problem”, says the Ozzie on the radio. This means the end of his qualifying session. With still over ten minutes remaining, the red flag is dropped. In the mean time Ricciardo’s car is retrieved.

After the re-start, the majority of the drivers head back out on track, with the exception of Max and Nico Hulkenberg. They prefer taking their time. The moment that Hamilton betters his time, is the moment that Max also heads out. His first flying lap, quickly puts the youngster at the top of the leaderboard. Then, a solid second faster than the Ferrari’s in second and third.

By now, there are drivers venturing out on the slicks. Fernando Alonso puts a smile on the faces at McLaren, and the crowd as well, as he puts his car, on the slicks, in P1. Max is in P2 and Ocon, also on slicks, P6. Drop outs in Q1 are: Lance Stroll, Kevin Magnussen, Pascal Wehrlein, Marcus Ericsson and Ricciardo.

At the start of Q2. Max is the early bird again. Everyone leaving the pits, is on the slicks, because it has become too dry for the intermediates by now. The first timed lap is not good enough for Max and he ends up out of the top ten. Another lap later, things are much better and he is second behind Bottas’ Mercedes. The latter does his fastest time on the soft compound tyres as the rest of the field is on the super-soft tyre. The pending grid penalty sees the Fin opt for a different strategy.

Max is not about to gamble on staying in after just one run. By now he has been dropped in the order down to fifth and with a great lap moves back up to P2, behind of Hamilton. Both gents drop some positions as both Ferrari’s take the lead. It’s curtain time in Q2 for Jolyon Palmer, Daniil Kvyat, Alonso, Carlos Sainz and Felipe Massa. Stoffel Vandoorne makes it through to Q3 and has out qualified Alonso for the first time this season.

Q3 sees Max as the last one to head out on track. Bottas is the first to get a time on the clock which is blown out of the water by a solid three tenths by Hamilton. Even Vettel is faster than the Fin. Max is on a fast lap after his first run and is fifth, behind of Raikkonen.

With still a few minutes to go, everyone prepares themselves for a second run, as Hulkenberg will be the last one to get a time noted. Max fails to improve in the first sector, but does just that in the second and third and also betters his time. However, this brings him nothing position wise. At the front, it is Hamilton who withstands the pressure put on by Raikkonen and Vettel and takes home the pole, in front of his home crowd.

British Grand Prix - Silverstone - Saturday 15 July

RESULTS QUALIFYING

01 44 Lewis Hamilton      Mercedes                    1:39.069 1:27.893 1:26.600 25
02  7 Kimi Raikkonen      Ferrari                     1:40.455 1:28.992 1:27.147 25
03  5 Sebastian Vettel    Ferrari                     1:39.962 1:28.978 1:27.356 23
04 77 Valtteri Bottas     Mercedes                    1:39.698 1:28.732 1:27.376 26
05 33 Max Verstappen      Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer   1:38.912 1:29.431 1:28.130 23
06 27 Nico Hulkenberg     Renault                     1:39.201 1:29.340 1:28.856 21
07 11 Sergio Perez        Force India Mercedes        1:42.009 1:29.824 1:28.902 26
08 31 Esteban Ocon        Force India Mercedes        1:39.738 1:29.701 1:29.074 25
09  2 Stoffel Vandoorne   McLaren Honda               1:40.011 1:30.105 1:29.418 24
10  8 Romain Grosjean     Haas Ferrari                1:42.042 1:29.966 1:29.549 26
11 30 Jolyon Palmer       Renault                     1:41.404 1:30.193          18
12 26 Daniil Kvyat        Toro Rosso                  1:41.726 1:30.355          20
13 14 Fernando Alonso     McLaren Honda               1:37.598 1:30.600          17
14 55 Carlos Sainz        Toro Rosso                  1:41.114 1:31.368          15
15 19 Felipe Massa        Williams Mercedes           1:41.874 1:31.482          21
16 18 Lance Stroll        Williams Mercedes           1:42.573                   11
17 20 Kevin Magnussen     Haas Ferrari                1:42.577                   11
18 94 Pascal Wehrlein     Sauber Ferrari              1:42.593                   10
19  9 Marcus Ericsson     Sauber Ferrari              1:42.633                   10
20  3 Daniel Ricciardo    Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer   1:42.966                    4 

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