Verstappen hails P2 result despite “super difficult” and “slippery” Las Vegas Qualifying

Max Verstappen settled for second in wild Las Vegas Qualifying that he compared to like "driving on ice."

Photo credits: F1

A variety of weather has hit the Las Vegas street circuit throughout the weekend so far, with two wet practice sessions and a single dry run. When the green flag for qualifying waved, an earlier downpour left the track almost glacial for the drivers to tackle. The challenging task was highlighted when both Alex Albon and Oliver Bearman hit the wall in Q1, ending their session early, while the rest of the drivers were squirming to avoid joining them.

As the track dried, drivers switched from full wets to intermediate tyres for the Q3 shootout. Max Verstappen remained a strong contender, aiming to retain the “King of Las Vegas” title.

Verstappen battled with the tricky conditions to take provisional pole position on his final lap, as the track improved. But he was unable to match Lando Norris, who produced a stellar performance to snatch pole position on the final run of the session. The Dutchman settled for second, describing qualifying like “driving on ice.”

“It was really, really slippery out there,” Verstappen said in the post-qualifying interview straight out of the cockpit. 

“It’s already slippery in the dry but in the wet… it’s not fun, I can tell you that.

“I like to drive in the wet – this felt more like driving on ice, so it took a long time to get the tyres to work a bit."

“I did feel that we were a little bit more competitive on the extreme tyre, but the track is improving so we have to move on to the inter. I struggled a lot just to have any kind of grip, and the final lap of course you risk a little bit more, but it was still by far not enough to fight for first.

“But still to be on the front row I think is good for us. The lap felt alright, it’s just super difficult out there to get all the braking zones right and be on the limit of the tyres as well, but we did it. Excited for tomorrow, I hope the inside is okay in terms of grip, but we will see.”

In a later interview with F1, Verstappen revealed there are still question marks over Sunday’s race. The varied weather conditions have meant drivers have been unable to test the tyres they may use on Sunday’s race, leaving more questions than answers for tomorrow.

“You always want to be first, but I felt like that was never really on the cards in Q3. Simply in Q3, I never really felt I had the grip.

“We lacked maybe one lap, but it’s always difficult to know, realistically we were not at the same level but still to be second is good, we just have to focus ahead for tomorrow. 

“Still a lot of unknowns for everyone because some tyres we will run tomorrow haven’t been run yet so we will need to see how our car will run on that.”

While the drivers had to contend with the challenging driving conditions, visibility proved a particularly difficult challenge, especially during the first quarter.

“The visibility was also very tough. In these cars as well, the ground effect era, there’s a lot of weight that gets picked up from the floor, so when it rains there’s a lot of water and spray.” Verstappen explained.

“That’s why you always want at least eight seconds, and I know it’s a lot, otherwise you don’t really see what’s happening in front of you.”

With no forecasted rain for the big event on Sunday, how might the drivers fare on a track they’ve had limited dry running time on?