15/09/2018
NEWS STORY
Judging by his frustration during FP3, few would have been surprised to see Max Verstappen storm off to his hotel room in disgust rather than suffer further at the hands of "the product" in the back of his car and its erratic behaviour.
As the Dutch youngster's engine became ever more erratic, intermittently cutting out, he began to vent his anger at anyone he could, even other drivers.
Yet, despite his various issues, in Q3, when it really mattered, he produced the second best lap of the afternoon to stick his car alongside Lewis Hamilton's on the front row for tomorrow's race.
"Totally unexpected," he admitted at the end of the session. "From FP3 onwards I was shaking from anger but now I am shaking from happiness.
"In FP3 there were just so many problems," he admitted. "Going into false neutral, the car was stopping on track. While driving on my fast laps it was just bogging down, and qualifying was exactly the same story.
"We had to detune the engine and lost a bit of time to try to make the driveability better, but it still didn't work like it should do.
"Going into Q3 I felt the car was working really well and I didn't have anything to complain, so when I saw second on the board I was actually quite surprised what with the problems I had
"On my final run, I tried to push a bit more and I was another two tenths up. Then I arrived to 16/17 and when I had to short shift again, the engine just cut out, so I had to abort."
While unsure if he had it in him to take pole, he is convinced he could have gone quicker on his second run but for the engine issue.
"If it was going to be enough to pole I am not so sure," he said, "but at least it was going to be closer than three-tenths. I am already surprised to be second with all the issues I am having.
"The only thing I can say is it was a great qualifying," he added, "I think the best I have ever done and also the car was working really well. Definitely that put us second today."
Though beset with problem today, the youngster is convinced all will be OK on Sunday.
"Normally in the race you have to turn down the power," he said. "It is just when you go to the limit of the engine where we seem to struggle somehow this weekend with it, with driveabilty and torque mapping and stuff. For example, yesterday in long runs I didn't have a problem, and if it breaks it breaks, you cannot really change that. We will find out tomorrow."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Singapore, here.