Honda sees Verstappen back on pole: "He took the lead immediately"

Today the first sprint race in Formula 1 history took place, and it resulted in some changes at the front. While Lewis Hamilton started the 100km race in first place, it was Max Verstappen who crossed the line first and will start from pole position tomorrow.

Honda watched with satisfaction as Verstappen dominated the sprint race. This says among others Yoyoharu Tanabe on the site of Honda. "In the first ever Formula 1 sprint qualifying, Max got off to a fantastic start and immediately took the lead. He won his fourth consecutive pole and that of Red Bull Racing Honda, although of course this pole was different from the previous three." Sergio Perez' s result, however, was somewhat less so.

"Unfortunately Checo lost a number of places after he spun and was eventually taken out of the race by the team because it caused a lot of tyre vibration and that was a safety risk."

AlphaTauri performance satisfies Honda

Where a lot changed at Red Bull, this was not the case at AlphaTauri during the sprint race. This was also seen by Honda, which is nevertheless satisfied with the result.

"For Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda, both Pierre and Yuki finished 12th and 16th on their starting positions and so far it has been a difficult weekend for the team."

Honda looks ahead to the race

Because during that race Verstappen will therefore start from first position, ahead of Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas. "In tomorrow's race Max has both Mercedes cars right behind him on the grid, while the other three Honda drivers are quite a bit further back, which means it could be a difficult race for all of them. Today's race means we've collected a lot of useful data relevant to tomorrow's Grand Prix and we'll spend the next few hours carefully analysing everything."