Max Verstappen described his 2024 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix victory as “a great feeling” after a difficult weekend.
Having struggled for pace amidst setup issues and off-track excursions throughout Friday Practice, Verstappen bounced back to equal Ayrton Senna’s record of eight consecutive pole positions on Saturday after he dominated Qualifying despite close challenge from McLaren and Ferrari.
Reflecting upon his issues in Practice, Verstappen admitted that he found it “tricky to get a good balance” and felt “uncomfortable” with his car, which he thought “… was moving around a lot and was very easy to lose the car at some points on the track.”
FP3 however saw the Dutchman slip 0.837 seconds off the pace of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri after he failed to do a proper soft-tyre Qualifying simulation, which left him feeling that his pole position was “really rewarding” despite having lacked “pace and balance” throughout practice.
Verstappen however acknowledged that McLaren looked set to be “strong” challengers after he pipped Piastri to pole by 0.074s, with Lando Norris a further 0.017s behind the Aussie, although Piastri was demoted to fifth for impeding Haas’ Kevin Magnussen in Q1.
On his eighth consecutive pole, Verstappen said: “It is special and a proud moment to receive eight poles in a row, especially as we have been having a tough weekend. It was a whole team effort but we managed to bring it together today. Very happy!”
The 26 year-old eventually survived a tough “close” late scrap to deny Norris a second F1 win – just two weeks after the Brit won in Miami – by 0.725s, having largely dominated despite having “really low grip” on his hard tyres which made his Red Bull “trickier to drive” than on medium tyres.
Explaining his emotions as Norris unsuccessfully reeled him in whilst trying not to breach track limits, Verstappen admitted that he “… was really trying to survive on the tyres and managed to keep Lando behind, but it required a lot of focus as we were on the limit with the penalty.
“However, we managed to work through and take the win; I was definitely counting down the laps until the end and it was a great feeling when we took the chequered flag!”
Verstappen went on to add that if consider their struggles across the weekend, the win “was an extremely good result.”
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