30/06/2023
NEWS STORY
Max Verstappen: "It's great to be on pole here at the Red Bull Ring, it feels good.
"It wasn't a straightforward qualifying because of all the track limits. It's very hard to judge the white line here, a lot of us got caught out so at least it wasn't just us. Today was all about surviving, we just needed to bank the laps as we weren't able to push hard. It's such a short lap here so we are all pretty close together. We've got a long weekend ahead so a lot can happen, tomorrow will be a completely different story. Today, the car was quick and we were ahead, that's the most important thing."
Sergio Perez: "I think we most definitely had the pace today and you could see that as qualifying progressed. I'm disappointed, especially with my final lap. It is always fine margins at this circuit and the first two laps that I had deleted for track limits the rules were clear and I accept those decisions from the stewards. On my final run in Q2 I tried to push as best as I could within those limits and was on a good lap but was in traffic and that was trickier to keep clean. It is what it is, we look forward to tomorrow, it is a new opportunity. The most positive thing is that we have the pace and then we will try and recover on Sunday afternoon for the race. I am feeling a little better but still not one hundred percent, my whole focus is on being prepared for tomorrow's Sprint and then racing well on Sunday."
Christian Horner: "It was a difficult session today, it's very hard to see the white lines as we can see from the number of infringements, but a superb job from Max to get that pole despite needing to be a little more conservative due to track limits. For Checo it was more frustrating, he had the pace and was putting in similar lap times to Max but unfortunately he had three deleted lap times. He'll be incredibly frustrated, but he's got the full support of the Team and we all know what he's capable of, he'll turn the page and race hard for the rest of the weekend. This track is one you can overtake on, you can see the Ferraris had great pace and Charles was just half a tenth off at the end, so the weekend offers some tough but exciting racing."
Check out our Friday gallery from the Red Bull Ring here.