Max Verstappen and the Red Bull team are engaged in a pit stop practice session.
Helmut Marko issued a ‘grazie mille’ to Nico Hulkenberg, Max Verstappen’s good friend and now pole position helper after the Haas driver’s slipstream made the difference in qualifying.
Struggling with a lack of grip, Verstappen endured a dreadful time during the three practice sessions for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, unable to secure a position higher than sixth.
‘That gave us two-tenths over Oscar Piastri’
Going into qualifying fearing the worst, Max Verstappen pulled off one of the best recoveries in recent years as he topped all three qualifying segments.
Nevertheless, he received assistance during the crucial pole position shoot-out, managing to surpass Oscar Piastri’s McLaren by a mere 0.074s and extending his streak of Grand Prix pole positions to eight.
Marko confessed to Sky Deutschland that it was quite unexpected. He mentioned that they had almost lost faith in securing the pole position.
“We achieved a gradual improvement through the changes we implemented. We thoroughly explored all potential options, starting with understeer, then oversteer, and finally experiencing understeering and bottoming out in FP3.”
Ultimately, the issue was simply excessive oversteering, but we managed to rectify it by adding an extra flap to regain control.
However, the last element that contributed to Verstappen’s remarkable pole position lap was none other than Nico Hulkenberg.
As PlanetF1.com’s data cruncher Pablo Hidalgo explained, the German driver on his cooldown lap was in the middle of the start/finish straight when Verstappen started his final Q3 attempt.
This implies that the Dutchman gained an advantage from the slipstream provided by the Haas driver, which was evident in Sector 1 during Verstappen’s fight against the McLarens.
Hidalgo’s analysis revealed that slipstreaming enabled Verstappen to surpass his competitors by more than 7km/h in terms of top speed.
Marko was grateful.
The 81-year-old expressed gratitude to Nico Hulkenberg for providing a helpful slipstream in Sector One, resulting in a two-tenths advantage over Oscar Piastri.
Max’s ability to achieve pole position was ultimately determined by that decisive factor.
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Despite starting in pole position, Verstappen believes that Red Bull is at a disadvantage due to the challenges they faced during practice sessions.
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“No, not at all,” he responded when questioned about his level of preparedness. “To be honest, Friday was absolutely dreadful both in the short term and the long term.”
“This morning [Saturday], our intention was to go on a long run, but we ended up completing only three laps. Unfortunately, the experience didn’t feel great. Moreover, I lacked balance during the short run, which made it unsurprising that the long run didn’t go well either.”
“I believe that our qualifying performance, with the right equilibrium, will improve. However, I am unsure about McLaren’s capabilities as they displayed remarkable strength during their long run on Friday. Hopefully, we can achieve a comparable outcome.”
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