Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen drinks champagne on the podium. | AFP
Image: Philip Fong / AFP
For the second time this season, Max Verstappen will start from an "unexpected" pole position in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
It's quite the accomplishment when considering the struggles Red Bull have had with putting a decent car together this season with former design boss Adrian Newey.
All the might and pace of the Papaya rockets at McLaren could not keep up with the Dutchmans blistering pace through the street circuit of Jeddah Corniche Circuit.
Oscar Piastri was hot on the his tail during qualifying last night, with Lando Norris suffering a crash and settling to start in in P3 after a disasterous Q3 round.
Footage shared of both Verstappen and Piastri's lap showed how close the two were bit the Red Bull driver slipped away on pace. The ghost car comparison clearly shows Verstappen being a late breaker as compared to Piastri, who is only in his first season but putting up a dog fight for the World Title.
Verstappen scrapped every inch of time he could find in the RB21 and qualified in 1:27:294 for pole to which he famously replied on radio:"Oooooh oh oh oh yesssss. Oh my God guys, Simply lovely that."
“I definitely didn’t expect to be on pole here, especially after FP3 looking at how the whole weekend was,” said Verstappen after hopping out of the car.
“The car came alive in the night, we made some final changes and it was a lot more enjoyable to drive, the grip was coming to me and, around here, a qualifying lap is extremely difficult because of all the walls, you need to try and nail it.
“It’s really satisfying to be first here in Qualifying, it is of course the best position for tomorrow, even though I think tomorrow in the race it will be tough to keep them behind but we’re going to give it a good go," Verstappen said.
George Russell completes the top 3 for Mercedes with Ferrari's Charles Le Clerc in P4 and Kimi Antonelli in P5.
Carlos Sainz will start in P6 for Williams with Lewis Hamilton behind and Yuki Tsunoda in P8. Pierre Gasly of Alpine Racing completes the top 10 with Norris behind him.
