Red Bull Racing Honda’s Max Verstappen will begin the Turkish Grand Prix in P2 after Saturday’s qualifying at Istanbul Park on a circuit that was largely dry following light rain at the start of Q1. The Dutch driver finished third in Q3, but because of a 10-place grid penalty imposed upon Lewis Hamilton for an engine change, which demotes the Brit to P11 despite winning Q3, all the drivers behind Hamilton are prompted one grid place for Sunday’s race.
Verstappen’s team-mate, Sergio Pérez of Mexico, crossed the line in seventh place, so will start in sixth position on Sunday.
Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda driver Pierre Gasly performed impressively and finished fifth in the qualifying, placing the Frenchman in P4 for Sunday; while his team-mate, Japan’s Yuki Tsunoda came in 10th and will start tomorrow in ninth.
Red Bull Racing Honda
MAX VERSTAPPEN – 3rd (starting P2)
“I am, of course, happy with third and starting on the front row tomorrow. We improved a little bit from yesterday and the balance is a bit better, but overall this weekend has been a bit more difficult. I hope for a clean getaway tomorrow, but starting on the inside will be tricky, as there is very low grip in both dry and wet conditions compared to the outside, so we are expecting to lose out there slightly. We also need to consider the gap behind us – it’s much tighter than usual. We’ll aim to make the best of it and try everything we can tomorrow to keep the Mercedes behind, but it’s not going to be easy – they’ve had great pace all weekend.”
SERGIO PÉREZ – 7th (starting P6)
“We are showing good progress and I think we should be able to continue that into race day. With the mixed conditions in Q1 we lost a set of new softs, meaning we only had one set for Q3. We did a banker lap on the used softs which was a decent time and then we didn’t manage to improve as much as we wanted to on the second run, which meant we didn’t get the lap time we were looking for. I am feeling positive and I am looking forward to trying to get through the grid and score some good points for the team. It is a pretty long race around here, overtaking is possible and the tyre degradation will be pretty high out there, so there is everything to play for. I believe if we can get a good clean run into turn one then we will be looking good for the rest of the race and a podium could be possible. We are up for the challenge; we have good strategy and pace.”
CHRISTIAN HORNER – Team Principal
“The guys have made a good recovery overnight and fixed some issues we needed to work out. I think the whole engineering team, both trackside and back at the factory in Milton Keynes, have done a great job to make the progress that we have; hopefully that puts us in better shape for tomorrow. With Max qualifying in third, but starting the race from second, it’s going to be vital he gets a good start and tries to get ahead of Bottas early on as Lewis has looked the quickest he’s been all year so far around here, so he’s going to be coming through pretty quickly. Checo’s times on the scrub tyre and the medium tyre were strong, it was just that last run on the new set of softs that didn’t come together. The strategy we’ve picked tomorrow for him should see him be able to make good progress. We think we can be closer to Mercedes tomorrow than we were in qualifying, so we’ve got to get our heads down, keep plugging away, get the strategy right and try to capitalise by getting the maximum points we can for both drivers.”
Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda
PIERRE GASLY – 5th (starting P4)
“I’m very happy to have qualified fifth today, and then to be starting P4 tomorrow after Lewis’s penalty. The team have made such a big improvement to the car since yesterday, as I was really struggling with understeer. It wasn’t the easiest to see if these changes had worked this morning, as FP3 was wet, but as soon as we got to qualifying, I was competitive and that was really positive. I’m confident heading into tomorrow’s race after the big step-up we’ve made with the car today and I’m hopeful we can score big points in the race.”
YUKI TSUNODA – 10th (starting P9)
“I have to say I’m still slightly disappointed with my performance today, I really believe that the pace of the car was there, and I could’ve been starting tomorrow further up the grid. The team did a fantastic job, but unfortunately I just couldn’t put it all together in Q3. I’ll be starting tomorrow’s race on the softs, which is a different strategy to most of the other cars around me, so I’ll have to prepare tonight and take every opportunity I can tomorrow. It’s still positive to qualify in the top 10. The main goal for me this weekend is to finish in the points, and I hope that tomorrow I can do that from a strong starting position.”
JONATHAN EDDOLLS – Chief Race Engineer
“Following FP2 we made some big changes to the car to improve the balance, as both drivers were continuing to struggle with this in yesterday’s afternoon session. Due to FP3 being wet, we didn’t get the opportunity to try our dry settings ahead of qualifying, but we saw that these still worked well in those conditions, which was positive ahead of quali. We used the session to complete some further tests to increase our understanding of the tyres on a wet track and we also continued to show the good pace we have here this weekend. Heading into quali, we decided to use a slightly different tyre plan with each driver. We wanted Yuki to get the highest possible starting position, so we gave him an additional set of softs, whereas for Pierre we aimed to optimise his race strategy by using just the mediums in Q2. Pierre managed to maximise every lap and had a fantastic Saturday afternoon, it’s a shame to be so close to P4 but the improvements we’ve made overnight to minimise the gap to Leclerc have worked really well. Likewise, Yuki has really made a step up this weekend and it’s great to see him back in Q3. The whole team has done some great work so far to have both cars starting in the top 10 tomorrow.”