Max Verstappen: “I locked up into turn eight which cost me pole today”

Max Verstappen once again lines up on the front row for the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship‘s São Paulo Grand Prix.

Already crowned World Champion, Verstappen will be hoping to win yet another race and aim towards breaking more records. The Dutchman has already won fourteen races this season, with the most recent being the Mexican Grand Prix after an early battle with Lewis Hamilton.

Verstappen did a good job in qualifying today and will start second on the grid, after George Russell’s crash that led to a red flag saw the track get wetter meaning Kevin Magnussen got on pole for the first time in his Formula 1 career. Verstappen was in good form across all three sessions, comfortably getting through in a wet to dry first session and topping the dry second session.

Verstappen discussed his chances in tomorrow’s sprint race and his mistakes that led to him only being able to finish in second.

“We were working with pretty tricky conditions today and I locked up into turn eight which cost me pole today. It’s just difficult out there and you have to see how far you can push, but you don’t want to make any big mistakes that can be costly. Tomorrow is looking good but in these conditions anything can happen. We are still up there at the front which is the most important thing.

Finally, the two-time World Champion gave his congratulations to Magnussen and Haas F1 Team on their first pole position.

“Let’s see how competitive we are going to be tomorrow in the race, we have no clue what will happen with the weather but that always makes Interlagos so special for everyone. Well done to Kevin and the Haas team today, I hope they enjoy every moment.

Sergio Pérez – “I was held up by Leclerc and Ferrari”

Sergio Pérez was bitterly disappointed by his qualifying performance, with the Mexican driver believing he had much more pace than what was shown today.

Perez would have been hoping to challenge for his third win of the season, after recently winning Singapore Grand Prix but after only qualifying ninth, there is work to do. Last time out, the Mexican had finished on the podium behind Hamilton, and he would have hoped to be in contention for the win, but a mixture of issues saw his downfall today.

The Red Bull driver believes that he was held up in his final push lap by Charles Leclerc and Ferrari, due to their strategical error to put the Monaco-born driver on the intermediate tyre compound.

“It was an unfortunate qualifying. I was held up by Leclerc and Ferrari. It was very clear to me that he was too slow on the inter on the outlap and I thought he was going to pit. I was expecting him to box and go onto the slicks. Instead, he stayed in front of me and I had to finish my lap just behind him, that meant I lost too much time.

“We will never know where I could have finished, top three should have been possible today but instead we finished P9 and I am super disappointed with the result. We will try hard tomorrow to try to recover and get into the points.“

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