Verstappen starting from 18th after qualifying sixth in Austin: “Not happy”

Published on 22 October 2017 by Mike Motilall

Max Verstappen qualified sixth at the Austin Grand Prix. However, the Dutchman will not be starting the race from the third row, due to pending grid penalties. He will be starting from P18. Lewis Hamilton showed his skills once more and scored his eleventh pole position this season. Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri Bottas rounded up the top three.

“The balance was not quite ok”, says Max after qualifying. “To me the lap in Q3 was not good. I made some mistakes in Q3, it as simple as that. I should have been with Sebastian. It’s easy to say now that I should have been there, but if you make two reasonable big mistakes, that’s not something you want. Of course I am not happy with myself and I think this is one of the worst qualifyings for me.”

Max explains his mistakes: “It was tricky out there, you try a little more and then you have a little moment, then your next corner is not great and basically ruined. In the last sector you try to recover a little bit of the lost lap time and then you lock up. So it’s not ideal."

Regarding tomorrow the Dutchman says the following: “I’ll try to get as further up as possible, but the first few laps you lose quite some seconds compared to the front runners. I’ll try to come back at least to sixth.”

The wind was also a factor during qualifying: “That wasn’t easy. In some corners you were oversteering and the car is sliding more than yesterday. But that’s the same for everyone.”

At the start of the first part of qualifying, Daniil Kvyat is the first one out on track. The Russian wants to make up some lost time after his problems in the third practice. Not much later, Max Verstappen is also to be seen on the Texan tarmac. The Dutchman has, as oppose to the Ferrari and Mercedes drivers, who are running on the super-softs, the ultra-softs strapped on to his RB13. In his flying lap he is hampered by traffic and aborts his run.

During a second lap, Max clocks a 1:34.899, good enough for first. Lewis Hamilton betters this almost immediately on a harder compound tyre. Valtteri Bottas and Sebastian Vettel round up the top four at that moment. Apart from moments during which the drivers got in each other’s way, Q1 goes by without a hitch. After the session, the drop outs are Ericsson, Stroll, Hartley, Wehrlein and Magnussen.

Q2 starts without Nico Hülkenberg. The Renault outfit doesn’t want to put extra mileage on the car and also wants to save the power unit, this because the German will be handed out a twenty-place grid penalty. Lewis Hamilton gets things going during the second part of qualifying with a 1:33.560 on the ultra-softs. Max Verstappen is the only driver on a harder compound and clocks a 1:34.716.

After the first runs, Hamilton is topping the leaderboard, with Bottas, Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo behind him. Verstappen is at that moment sixth. This would be the only run in Q2 for the Dutchman and his Red Bull Racing-team mate. Both have made it through to the final part of qualifying. Massa, Kvyat, Vandoorne, Grosjean and Hülkenberg don’t make the cut.

Immediately at the start of the final part of qualifying, it gets very busy on the Circuit of the Americas. Leader in the standings, Hamilton, clocks a 1:33.108. This puts the Brit half a second up on the time noted by his team mate shortly afterwards. Compared to the fastest lap time, Raikkonen and Vettel slot in in P3 and P4, almost eighth tenths down. Verstappen notes a 1:33.868 during his first flying lap and is fifth behind Vettel by a mere 0.001 of a second.

During the last timed laps, Vettel betters his time, putting him next to pole sitter Lewis Hamilton on the front row. Even Verstappen improves his time, despite a mistake, by over two tenths as he finishes sixth, behind Bottas, Ricciardo and Raikkonen. Max will be starting the race from P18 due to a grid penalty. Hulkenberg and Hartley will take the last two positions, also due to grid penalties.

US GP - Circuit Of The Americas - Saturday 21 October

RESULTS QUALIFYING

01 44 Lewis Hamilton      Mercedes                    1:34.822 1:33.437 1:33.108 18
02  5 Sebastian Vettel    Ferrari                     1:35.420 1:34.103 1:33.347 18
03 77 Valtteri Bottas     Mercedes                    1:35.309 1:33.769 1:33.568 17
04  3 Daniel Ricciardo    Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer   1:35.991 1:34.495 1:33.577 14
05  7 Kimi Räikkönen      Ferrari                     1:35.649 1:33.840 1:33.577 17
06 33 Max Verstappen      Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer   1:34.899 1:34.716 1:33.658 13
07 31 Esteban Ocon        Force India Mercedes        1:35.849 1:35.113 1:34.647 17
08 55 Carlos Sainz        Renault                     1:35.517 1:34.899 1:34.852 17
09 14 Fernando Alonso     McLaren Honda               1:35.712 1:35.046 1:35.007 15
10 11 Sergio Perez        Force India Mercedes        1:36.358 1:34.789 1:35.148 19
11 19 Felipe Massa        Williams Mercedes           1:35.603 1:35.155          9
12 26 Daniil Kvyat        Toro Rosso                  1:36.073 1:35.529          15
13  2 Stoffel Vandoorne   McLaren Honda               1:36.286 1:35.641          14
14  8 Romain Grosjean     Haas Ferrari                1:36.835 1:35.870          14
15 27 Nico Hulkenberg     Renault                     1:35.740                   3
16  9 Marcus Ericsson     Sauber Ferrari              1:36.842                   9
17 18 Lance Stroll        Williams Mercedes           1:36.868                   8
18 39 Brendon Hartley     Toro Rosso                  1:36.889                   7
19 94 Pascal Wehrlein     Sauber Ferrari              1:37.179                   9
20 20 Kevin Magnussen     Haas Ferrari                1:37.394                   7

United States GP contest: win a MV RBR jacket!