Max Verstappen could have taken pole position in Mexico, according to Helmut Marko – The Austrian is sure Ferrari was “bluffing” in practice
Even among Ferrari fans, only the most optimistic would have guessed before qualifying for the 2023 Mexican Grand Prix that Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz would finish in positions one and two. World champion Max Verstappen was left with only third place.
However, it was extremely close: the Dutchman was just 0.097 seconds off Leclerc’s pole time. Of course, this raises the question of whether pole position would have been possible for Verstappen? And according to Helmut Marko, it most certainly was.
“With a clear and optimal lap,” Marko said, first place for Verstappen “would have been out of the question.” But neither the first nor the second run in Q3 were perfect. Speaking to Sky, the Austrian explained that Verstappen lost pole in the final sector.
“Max didn’t have a clean lap [in] turn 13, 14, so in the last sector, in both runs, and then lost about 1.5 tenths there,” Marko said. A look at the data shows that Verstappen is actually permanently behind Leclerc on his fastest Q3 lap from turn 1.
But: At the start of the final sector, Verstappen is only a few hundredths behind Leclerc. At the exit of turn 13 and the entrance to turn 14, however, it’s more than two tenths, which confirms Marko’s statement.
Verstappen: Other sectors were not good either
Verstappen himself explained that he had expected a better “development during qualifying”. “I think we lacked that a bit today. Q1 was okay, Q2 wasn’t that bad. But then our improvements in Q3 were not big enough,” he reports.
Verstappen clocked a 1:17.625 in Q2 and a 1:17.263 in Q3, so while he “only” gained around 3.5 tenths, Leclerc found himself up more than seven tenths of a second from Q2 to Q3. “It’s very difficult. There is very little grip here because of the altitude,” Verstappen explained.
That’s why the track is a challenge, especially in qualifying, “if you want to get a perfect lap because there’s so little grip,” Verstappen said, explaining, “If you push a little bit more, you could overheat the tires or have a little slide.”
“And I think that’s what happened to me today. I tried to find a little more time [in Q3]. But then the balance wasn’t quite right, you slide and overheat the tires. And then you have no tires left in the last sector. That’s what happened,” he reported.
Asked if he pushed too hard in the middle sector and therefore ran out of tires at the end, he replies with a grin, “The middle sector felt bad, too! I slid a bit. I tried to get some time back after my first sector hadn’t been ideal. “
Marko sure: Ferrari was “bluffing” beforehand
“I was able to improve a bit, but not enough. And if you slide a bit too much here, then [the lap] doesn’t come together, as I said,” Verstappen said. Helmut Marko, meanwhile, wondered where the Ferrari pace suddenly came from in Q3.
“They were bluffing in all the practice sessions,” he suspects on ORF and explains on Sky, “It must be like that. We have no other explanation if you looked at the first two runs. That was by no means somehow visible, that this then suddenly comes.”
Verstappen himself is rather indifferent to that. Asked if the Ferrari performance surprised him, he replies with a shrug, “It’s always hard to say. I’m not part of their team, so I don’t know what’s going on.”
Incidentally, Marko is optimistic for the race despite the Ferrari surprise in qualifying. Indeed, he believes “that we will look better again in the race [and] that Ferrari won’t be able to go that speed. “
