Verstappen romped house to a 13-second win over Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in Shanghai’s 19-lap dash, earlier than happening to say a dominant pole for Sunday’s correct grand prix as properly.
An extended-time opponent of the dash format, Verstappen mentioned he was extra happy together with his pole place than together with his dash win, though he did concede its rejigged format with two separate parc ferme durations is a giant enchancment.
“It is a extra logical and nicer format,” Verstappen mentioned. “I used to be nonetheless happier with pole than with the dash race, after all.
Elaborating on his opinion to Sky Sports activities F1, Verstappen added: “I did assume it is nicer than what we had, simply that you simply additionally in a position to make some modifications to the automobile after the dash.
“The one factor which was a bit bit bizarre was that you simply did a race and you then return into qualifying [mode].
“Possibly we must always do qualifying after which the race. I do not know however these are simply issues to fine-tune possibly. However total, undoubtedly higher than what we used to have.”
Max Verstappen, Pink Bull Racing RB20
Picture by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Verstappen mentioned he and his race engineer opted to alter the Pink Bull RB20’s set-up forward of qualifying and Sunday’s race regardless of his dominant dash win.
“After the dash race, it gave us just a few extra concepts for the automobile and I feel the automobile labored even higher in qualifying now,” he defined.
“It undoubtedly provides you extra of an thought with the degradation, what to take a look at, what to work on.
“The wind route goes to alter once more tomorrow, so the stability of the automobile in some corners can be a bit completely different once more. However I feel if the automobile is simply even half nearly as good as what it was within the dash, I feel we’ll be alright.”
Verstappen established yet one more landmark for Pink Bull by clinching the workforce’s a hundredth pole place in F1, with the Dutchman accountable for 37 of these.
“Earlier than I jumped within the automobile, Christian [Horner] informed me if I get pole at this time, it could be quantity 100 for the workforce,” he mentioned.
“That is an unimaginable achievement for the entire workforce. After all, additionally a giant contribution from Seb [Vettel] again within the day. However yeah, unbelievable.”
Further reporting by Erwin Jaeggi