Max Verstappen says that braking issues hindered his Mexico Grand Prix qualifying session, in which his team-mate Daniel Ricciardo beat him to pole position by 0.026 seconds.
After having topped the timesheet in all three practice sessions, Verstappen entered qualifying as the favourite for pole.
However, the 21-year-old – who was vying to become the youngest polesitter in Formula 1 history – experienced a reoccurrence of braking issues that had surfaced in the second practice session.
Despite the problems, Verstappen occupied provisional pole entering the final run in Q3. Ricciardo made a significant improvement on his last lap, overhauling Verstappen’s benchmark to claim pole.
Describing his last attempt in Q3 as “just not good,” Verstappen explained, “I was struggling the whole qualifying, with the same problems I had in FP2, when I had a lot of rear locking, on the down-shifting and when I come off throttle.
“Somehow the behaviour was not correct. So we couldn’t do anything throughout qualifying, so I just had to lock a lot of tools, go forward on the brake balance to try and stabilise the whole car.
“It’s not how you want to do qualifying, normally you go more aggressive and be more aggressive on all the tools. That’s it.”
Asked whether he expects the problems to hinder his race, Verstappen added; “We’ll find out. At the moment I don’t know.”
Verstappen recorded impressive pace during FP2’s race simulation runs before a total power shutdown caused his Red Bull to stop on track in the closing minutes of the session.
From second on the grid, the Dutchman won last year’s Mexico Grand Prix by 19 seconds and having led every lap after taking the lead with a bold overtake around the outside of Sebastian Vettel at Turn 1.
With Ricciardo joining Verstappen on the front row this year, it is Red Bull’s first one-two on the grid since the 2013 US Grand Prix.
