Austrian GP : Post-Qualifying reaction from Max and Perez

Max Verstappen took pole position at the Red Bull Ring for the second weekend in a row as he fended off a shock threat from Lando Norris to take top spot on the grid for the Austrian Grand Prix.

The Dutchman failed to improve on his second run, setting up a tense finale as Norris behind him was going quicker. In the end, he missed out on a shock maiden pole by just 0.048s, giving Verstappen his third consecutive F1 pole and fourth pole of 2021 season.

Sergio Perez improved his qualifying performance compared to seven days ago. He brings second Red Bull home in P3.

Importantly he out-qualified both Mercedes drivers, Lewis Hamilton in P4 and Valtteri Bottas in P5, this will hand a big advantage to the team during race in terms of strategy.

This will be Red Bull’s 10th pole in Formula 1 Turbo hybrid era.

Max Verstappen (P1)

“Q1 and Q2 were very good and comfortable but I was not entirely happy in Q3 as my laps weren’t amazing. I’m of course happy to be on pole, especially at the Red Bull Ring again, and having three poles in a row is great for the Team.

But I cannot be entirely happy as I always want to be perfect and I always want to analyse what went well and what went wrong. Maybe that is how I grew up but I also believe that is how you keep improving.

Now I’m just looking forward to tomorrow as we have a good race car and of course with Checo being third as well it is great for the Team and hopefully we can push together and score a lot of points.

It was also an amazing lap by Lando and they have been quite close this weekend but I don’t expect them to be our main rivals in the race tomorrow. I’m very pleased with the whole package, the car and engine together have been working so well over the last few races, so we have good confidence for tomorrow.

But for sure it’s never easy and it’s softer compounds compared to last week so it will be tough to manage those in the race and we still have strong competition. It was also amazing to see the orange army back in the grandstands. It has been a long time and they are so happy to be here cheering us on which I love to see.”

Sergio Perez (P3)

“I’m happy, it’s a very good result for the Team here at our home track in Austria. Max and I are in a good starting position and hopefully we can get a good start off the line tomorrow, that will be critical.

Overall, it’s been a really hard weekend up until now, we’ve been chasing a lot of balance, exploring the car in all areas and just chipping away at it in every single run. I’m starting on the mediums but it’s going to be a race where one or two pit stops is unknown, no one has had enough of a long run yet so it’s hard to tell.

In the end we got a good lap today and it didn’t come easy, anything can happen tomorrow and I believe we have a better race car than quali so I hope that we can bring home some solid points for the Team. Congratulations to Lando too, he did a very strong lap today.” 

Christian Horner, Team Principal

“Today was a great Team performance. It’s our first triple pole since 2013 and Max’s first, plus it’s great to have Checo up there in P3 giving us a great chance with both cars tomorrow. Max is always looking for that little bit extra and he was frustrated as he felt there was more in the car in Q3.

He had a slight lock-up on the first run so we wanted to give him clean air for the second which meant he ended up at the front of the queue, creating a hole in the air that gave Lando behind him a slight tow making the margin very small, but nonetheless a phenomenal performance once again from him.

It was clear that we wanted to get both cars through on the medium tyre which is what we achieved, so let’s see what the weather brings tomorrow with the colder temperatures and threat of rain.

The tyres are also a step softer so there will be a lot of discussion tonight around whether the race is a one or two stop. You forget the atmosphere the fans bring, it seems so long since we’ve had them at the track.

Max has got such a large, loyal following, and you could hear the noise when he got pole no matter where you were on the circuit. It’s great for Formula One to see the fans back so let’s hope we can deliver a great result for them tomorrow.”

Toyoharu Tanabe, Honda Racing F1

“Today was another great display from Max, who took his third consecutive pole position, while his team-mate Checo’s strong performance to take third place puts us in a encouraging position for tomorrow’s race. There could be bad weather at some point during the race and we will prepare for any eventuality, ready to make the most of our excellent grid positions.”