'Ayrton Senna would be proud of Verstappen's special lap at Imola'

After all Red Bull Racing's problems before qualifying in Imola, Max Verstappen's pole for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix was unexpected - not least for the Dutch driver himself. During that final lap at the end of the session, Verstappen once again seemed to rise above himself, as Verstappen can. Or as Ayrton Senna could in the past.

Looking back on the huge turnaround Red Bull managed to achieve, Damon Hill says: "Completely against their nature, they were unusually forlorn and a little bit lost, scratching heads and looking a bit confused by things. But then as the weekend builds up and it gets closer and closer to the final run, Max dug deep, he found whatever he’s got there and he absolutely delivered the lap."

For Hill, the fact that Verstappen came back so strongly in Imola of all places made the comparison with Senna easy: "Senna would be proud of it, I think. It was a very special lap, absolutely fully committed," stated the one-time world champion, who was Senna's teammate at Williams in the disaster year of 1994.

Before the GP weekend, the 20 drivers paused to reflect on the death of Senna and also Roland Ratzenberger, who crashed in his Simtek during qualifying in '94.