Max Verstappen will start Sunday's Belgian Grand prix from the third row of the grid after setting the fifth fastest time in Saturday's qualifying session on the Spa Francorchamps circuit.
As 80,000 orange clad Dutch/Belgian fans cheered the flying Dutchman on from the sidelines, he put in the best lap the Renault powered car was capable of producing and was left feeling positive at the end of the hour long session.
"I was really happy with my lap in Q3, it couldn't have been better to be honest as I feel I put everything together and got the best performance out of the car possible. I think the lap felt better than P5, last year I was P2 and I think it felt just as good this year, but I'm happy with the result anyway and would say it was a perfect qualifying,” he said.
“I am positively surprised we are so close to Ferrari, Lewis was way ahead but in the race I think we can be closer so perhaps a good result is possible. Our strength is in sector 2 so we will work even harder there to improve a bit but in general the balance of the car was great and that allowed me to execute a very good Qualifying session. Although the car felt good today I still think we need a bit of luck to do something special tomorrow.”
“For now it looks like it will be a dry race so let's hope that changes overnight and I think then we can fight properly. On my fast laps I was concentrating too much but on my in lap I could see the orange crowd and smoke from all the fans, this is amazing to see. As I left the pit lane there was a guy on the fence in all orange waving me on, it's awesome."
