Max Verstappen said he found it difficult to keep his car on track when rain fell in qualifying, leading to two of his lap times being deleted.
The Red Bull driver failed to take pole position for the first time this year in the rain-affected sprint race qualifying session at Shanghai International Circuit. He qualified over two seconds slower than pole-winner Lando Norris and will start from fourth on the grid.Two corners, turns six and 16, caught drivers out during the session. Verstappen lost one lap time at each of them.
“It was incredibly slippery,” he told the official F1 channel. “I just struggled a lot to get the temperature in the tyres. So that’s why it was just very difficult to keep the car on-track.
“It never really switched on for me. It was always just like driving on ice.”
Verstappen also told his team his engine misfired at times during his lap. He was at risk of losing his fourth place to team mate Sergio Perez until the other Red Bull driver also went off at the final corner.
Despite the difficult session, Verstappen said he was pleased to line up on the second row of the grid.
“I think it’s quite deserved where we are in qualifying, which is not really working for me in the wet, even though I think in the dry we look quite good,” he said. “So I’m of course quite happy with that.”
As teams only had a single, one-hour session to prepare their cars, Verstappen admitted he’s unsure how well his car will perform over tomorrow’s 19-lap sprint race.
“It’s not ideal to start on the inside here,” he said. “There’s a lot lower grip left-to-right with this painted stuff on the Tarmac. So we’ll have to try and have the best start possible.
“Then, of course, I think it’s going to be quite a long stint on one set of tyres in the sprint, but that makes it quite interesting, I think.”
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