Max Verstappen has explained how he missed out on a final effort in Qualifying at the United States Grand Prix, after his first effort proved enough to secure pole.<\/p>\n
The four-time World Champion will line up at the head of the field<\/a> for Sunday\u2019s Grand Prix at the Circuit of The Americas as he looks to further cut the 55-point margin in the Drivers\u2019 Standings<\/a> to leader Oscar Piastri<\/a>, with the Red Bull man’s victory in the Sprint earlier on Saturday<\/a> helping to reduce the gap as Piastri and team mate Lando Norris crashed out at the first turn.<\/p>\n However, Qualifying took a late twist for Verstappen<\/a> as he was unable to start his final flying lap before the chequered flag fell, leaving him vulnerable to the chasing pack.<\/p>\n Despite the best efforts of his rivals, the four-time World Champion’s 1m 32.510s effort proved insurmountable, leaving the Red Bull<\/a> pit wall to breathe a sigh of relief \u2013 this after Yuki Tsunoda<\/a> had lost out in a similar scenario in Sprint Qualifying on Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cI was actually okay,\u201d said Verstappen when asked if he had felt worried in the closing stages.<\/p>\n \u201cI was just a bit disappointed at what was going on ahead. Just a lot of people were leaving 10-12 second gaps, which you can\u2019t really anticipate gaps that big. So we missed out by a couple of seconds, which is not ideal, but luckily, it didn\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/p>\n Verstappen had complained of a loose rear end in Sprint Qualifying, with the rear seeming similarly skittish at stages in the Sprint on his way to victory. With a change in the wind for Qualifying, this was again something he was forced to manage.<\/p>\n \u201cThe wind picked up today compared to yesterday, and it managed to turn a little bit, so a full-on tailwind into all of the esses, so you just lose downforce,\u201d Verstappen explained.<\/p>\n \u201cThe car is moving around a lot more, even compared to yesterday, so that made it a bit harder.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, in some corners, you gain a bit of lap time back, but you can\u2019t commit as much as you normally can into sector one.\u201d<\/p>\n Verstappen will look to take Grand Prix victory in Austin on Sunday as he continues to mount a fightback for the Drivers’ title, with rivals Norris and Piastri starting second and sixth respectively on the grid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen has explained how he missed out on a final effort in Qualifying at the United States…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-223913","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}