Verstappen starting from 18th after qualifying sixth in Austin: “Not happy”
Published on 22 October 2017 by Mike Motilall
Max Verstappen qualified sixth at the Austin Grand Prix. However, the Dutchman will not be starting the race from the third row, due to pending grid penalties. He will be starting from P18. Lewis Hamilton showed his skills once more and scored his eleventh pole position this season. Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri Bottas rounded up the top three.
“The balance was not quite ok”, says Max after qualifying. “To me the lap in Q3 was not good. I made some mistakes in Q3, it as simple as that. I should have been with Sebastian. It’s easy to say now that I should have been there, but if you make two reasonable big mistakes, that’s not something you want. Of course I am not happy with myself and I think this is one of the worst qualifyings for me.”
Max explains his mistakes: “It was tricky out there, you try a little more and then you have a little moment, then your next corner is not great and basically ruined. In the last sector you try to recover a little bit of the lost lap time and then you lock up. So it’s not ideal."
Regarding tomorrow the Dutchman says the following: “I’ll try to get as further up as possible, but the first few laps you lose quite some seconds compared to the front runners. I’ll try to come back at least to sixth.”
The wind was also a factor during qualifying: “That wasn’t easy. In some corners you were oversteering and the car is sliding more than yesterday. But that’s the same for everyone.”
At the start of the first part of qualifying, Daniil Kvyat is the first one out on track. The Russian wants to make up some lost time after his problems in the third practice. Not much later, Max Verstappen is also to be seen on the Texan tarmac. The Dutchman has, as oppose to the Ferrari and Mercedes drivers, who are running on the super-softs, the ultra-softs strapped on to his RB13. In his flying lap he is hampered by traffic and aborts his run.
During a second lap, Max clocks a 1:34.899, good enough for first. Lewis Hamilton betters this almost immediately on a harder compound tyre. Valtteri Bottas and Sebastian Vettel round up the top four at that moment. Apart from moments during which the drivers got in each other’s way, Q1 goes by without a hitch. After the session, the drop outs are Ericsson, Stroll, Hartley, Wehrlein and Magnussen.
Q2 starts without Nico Hülkenberg. The Renault outfit doesn’t want to put extra mileage on the car and also wants to save the power unit, this because the German will be handed out a twenty-place grid penalty. Lewis Hamilton gets things going during the second part of qualifying with a 1:33.560 on the ultra-softs. Max Verstappen is the only driver on a harder compound and clocks a 1:34.716.
After the first runs, Hamilton is topping the leaderboard, with Bottas, Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo behind him. Verstappen is at that moment sixth. This would be the only run in Q2 for the Dutchman and his Red Bull Racing-team mate. Both have made it through to the final part of qualifying. Massa, Kvyat, Vandoorne, Grosjean and Hülkenberg don’t make the cut.
Immediately at the start of the final part of qualifying, it gets very busy on the Circuit of the Americas. Leader in the standings, Hamilton, clocks a 1:33.108. This puts the Brit half a second up on the time noted by his team mate shortly afterwards. Compared to the fastest lap time, Raikkonen and Vettel slot in in P3 and P4, almost eighth tenths down. Verstappen notes a 1:33.868 during his first flying lap and is fifth behind Vettel by a mere 0.001 of a second.
During the last timed laps, Vettel betters his time, putting him next to pole sitter Lewis Hamilton on the front row. Even Verstappen improves his time, despite a mistake, by over two tenths as he finishes sixth, behind Bottas, Ricciardo and Raikkonen. Max will be starting the race from P18 due to a grid penalty. Hulkenberg and Hartley will take the last two positions, also due to grid penalties.
US GP - Circuit Of The Americas - Saturday 21 October
RESULTS QUALIFYING 01 44 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:34.822 1:33.437 1:33.108 18 02 5 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:35.420 1:34.103 1:33.347 18 03 77 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1:35.309 1:33.769 1:33.568 17 04 3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer 1:35.991 1:34.495 1:33.577 14 05 7 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:35.649 1:33.840 1:33.577 17 06 33 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer 1:34.899 1:34.716 1:33.658 13 07 31 Esteban Ocon Force India Mercedes 1:35.849 1:35.113 1:34.647 17 08 55 Carlos Sainz Renault 1:35.517 1:34.899 1:34.852 17 09 14 Fernando Alonso McLaren Honda 1:35.712 1:35.046 1:35.007 15 10 11 Sergio Perez Force India Mercedes 1:36.358 1:34.789 1:35.148 19 11 19 Felipe Massa Williams Mercedes 1:35.603 1:35.155 9 12 26 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:36.073 1:35.529 15 13 2 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren Honda 1:36.286 1:35.641 14 14 8 Romain Grosjean Haas Ferrari 1:36.835 1:35.870 14 15 27 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 1:35.740 3 16 9 Marcus Ericsson Sauber Ferrari 1:36.842 9 17 18 Lance Stroll Williams Mercedes 1:36.868 8 18 39 Brendon Hartley Toro Rosso 1:36.889 7 19 94 Pascal Wehrlein Sauber Ferrari 1:37.179 9 20 20 Kevin Magnussen Haas Ferrari 1:37.394 7
