max verstappen in gesprek met gianpiero lambiase

How Verstappen and Red Bull 'cooked' their way from the midfield to pole at Silverstone

17:52, 05 Jul

byNorberto Mujica

The weekend did not get off to the greatest start for Max Vertappen as he struggled significantly with his unruly RB2. However, on Saturday afternoon, he sits on pole for tomorrow's race. How did he do it?

Is it Verstappen's Senna-like skills to overturn a nightmare weekend and poise himself to take a surprising result? Could it be Red Bull's premiered floor upgrade? Or perhaps a mix of both?

"I'm not sure of course how much it did, but for sure it brought something," said the Dutchman referring to the the updated floor to media including GPblog after qualifying.

"And I'm happy of course with any kind of upgrade that we get on the car. We just keep learning, keep trying to be better and take it race by race, what we can do."

Red Bull made overnight changes to counter 'up to the moon understeering'

However, those are not all the factors that helped Verstappen clinch pole for Sunday's race. The Red Bull garage decided to trim downforce overnight, giving the Dutchman a strategical superiority down the straights.

"We looked a bit slow yesterday on the other wing, plus I was just understeering to the moon, so I had to try and reduce a bit that understeer. It seemed to work."

However, the lack of downforce, makes the car more difficult to manage through the fast sections, which Silverstone has a number of, nevertheless Vertappen is happy with the overall balance and looks forward to the race.

"It is light on downforce for sure, you can see that I guess, but it seemed to hold on and that's why we decided to stick with it. And we'll see what we get from it tomorrow in the race."