Verstappen's Jeddah miracle due to factor out of his control: "Lacking a lot of pace"

It certainly didn't seem like it would play out that way during the first part of the weekend. McLaren team principal, Andrea Stella, thought Red Bull were sandbagging to put pressure on the papaya team. "The main differences were yesterday where we tried a lot of things," Verstappen clarified during the post-qualifying press conference.

What does Verstappen attribute the massive gap McLaren had throughout the weekend? The temperature, revealing Red Bull only made minor adjustments ahead of the qualifying session.

One thing is one lap pace, another, entirely different is race trim performance. And that is where Verstappen sees his RB21 is lacking. "Up until now, not very confident, to be honest. My long runs weren't particularly great compared to Oscar (Piastri, ed.) or Lando (Norris, ed.)"