Verstappen romped residence to a 13-second win over Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in Shanghai’s 19-lap dash, earlier than occurring to assert a dominant pole for Sunday’s correct grand prix as effectively.
A protracted-time opponent of the dash format, Verstappen mentioned he was extra happy along with his pole place than along with his dash win, though he did concede its rejigged format with two separate parc ferme durations is an enormous 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 just additionally in a position to make some modifications to the automobile after the dash.
“The one factor which was a little bit bit bizarre was that you just 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 general, positively 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 vary 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 a number of extra concepts for the automobile and I feel the automobile labored even higher in qualifying now,” he defined.
“It positively provides you extra of an thought with the degradation, what to have a look at, what to work on.
“The wind route goes to vary 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 barely even half pretty much as good as what it was within the dash, I feel we’ll be alright.”
Verstappen established one more landmark for Pink Bull by clinching the workforce’s a hundredth pole place in F1, with the Dutchman liable for 37 of these.
“Earlier than I jumped within the automobile, Christian [Horner] informed me if I get pole at the moment, it could be quantity 100 for the workforce,” he mentioned.
“That is an unbelievable achievement for the entire workforce. In fact, additionally an enormous contribution from Seb [Vettel] again within the day. However yeah, incredible.”
Further reporting by Erwin Jaeggi