Doornbos sees Red Bull's team achievements: "Those mechanics live their dreams"

At Imola, Mercedes was once again enormously dominant during qualifying. At a great distance from the rest of the field, the German team managed to qualify on the front row of the grid for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. Max Verstappen came closest to Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton but still had to yield more than half a second.

According to Robert Doornbos it is that big gap between Verstappen and Mercedes for various reasons. "In his last run in Q3 he complained on the radio about the warm-up. That's why he didn't want to go out behind (Daniel) Ricciardo, so his out-lap was already a lot better than the first run in Q3," explains Doornbos at Ziggo Sport.

"You saw that he was driving green sectors and that means that Verstappen connected his sectors well. I do expect half a second on such a short lap to hurt," says the ex-F1 driver. Verstappen almost didn't make it to the third and final part of qualifying, due to a broken spark plug.

"Rest and calm, but also having confidence in each other, that really helped them. Max was probably cooking up inside, but these are the moments for the mechanics to peak. The drivers have a boyhood dream, but so do the mechanics," concludes Doornbos.