“There is a lot more potential in the car than we are showing” – Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez both believe that there is still more performance to get out of the RB16, as Verstappen qualified second and Pérez in third for the Australian Grand Prix.

It was so nearly pole for Verstappen, who initially took provisional pole before being dropped to second by Charles Leclerc moments later. Verstappen appeared to lose a lot of time to the Scuderia Ferrari driver in the final sector, leaving Oracle Red Bull Racing with work to do ahead of the race.

Verstappen has found the weekend difficult so far but does believe that he has a strong car for the race. The Dutchman ended qualifying just over two tenths behind Leclerc.

“The weekend so far has been a bit of a struggle, there is a gap between Charles and I, but second of course is not bad and I think there is a lot more potential in the car than we are showing at the moment.

“I didn’t really feel 100% in the car today, so we tried to change a few things in the set up, but it didn’t quite make the improvements we hoped for and we’ll do the best we can tomorrow. I think we have a good race car and in race conditions everything stabilises a bit, so it is more consistent. Let’s hope we can have a good race tomorrow.”

“In the race I want to make a big step” – Sergio Pérez

Sergio Pérez has demonstrated strong pace all weekend and ended qualifying in a comfortable third place, however he was almost four tenths behind Leclerc!

Pérez could’ve possibly been closer to the fight for pole, after the team loaded extra fuel into his RB16 to give the Mexican more laps to push in the closing minutes of final qualifying.

Despite this, Pérez is hopeful that he can challenge the Championship Leader on Sunday, after feeling good yet again behind the wheel of his Red Bull.

“I think qualifying was going well, Q2 especially and then there were red flags on a couple of occasions which meant we didn’t get to experiment with the tyres, it is always hard with strategy when you get red flags. We went for three laps and carried that fuel just to find out at the end that the double push didn’t work any better than just setting one lap.

“It wasn’t the right thing to do and that costs us a couple of tenths, but Charles put in a tremendous lap, he put everything together and I didn’t. Hopefully tomorrow in the race we can be a lot closer, make it hard for them, have a strong race and enjoy it. I like this car, we are all learning every time we drive these new cars and tomorrow in the race I want to make a big step.”

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