Red Bull’s Max Verstappen finished fifth in the F1 2026 Barcelona-Catalunya Qualifying, over 16 seconds behind George Russell’s pole.
The four time world champion set a time of 1:15.021 in Q3. He qualified between his teammate, Isack Hadjar in P6 and McLaren’s Lando Norris in P4. Verstappen had finished P4 in FP1 and P6 in FP2 and FP3.
Verstappen: “overall we can be quite happy with this pace”
After struggling through FP3, the Dutch driver spoke on the car’s improvement during Qualifying. “I mean, we just struggled a lot with the car, and in qualifying it was a little bit better, but still a little bit surprised with then the gap shrinking.”
Verstappen explained: “Yeah, our car is just a little bit sensitive, but I think overall we can be quite happy with this pace. I mean, the whole weekend I think we were lacking six, seven tenths, and now it’s within three tenths.”
On his qualifying lap, the Red Bull driver clarified: “Yeah, my last lap, for whatever reason in the final sector I just started to slide a little bit too much to get more lap time out of it, so I lost quite a bit of time in [turn] 10 and 12.
“And then from there I probably took it a bit easy in the final corners because the feeling was gone.
“Otherwise, maybe P3 of course would have been on the cards,” he said.
Verstappen on possibilities for the Barcelona-Catalunya GP
On how his starting position will affect the race Verstappen pointed out: “But at the end of the day I also don’t think it’s going to make a massive change to your result tomorrow.
“This is going to be all about tyre deg and pit stops and strategies, so we’ll see how we’ll go tomorrow,” he explained.
When questioned further on what to expect for Sunday’s race and the hard tyres he gave up, Verstappen said: “To be honest, all the tyres felt bad.
“So I guess I think we’ll struggle. It just depends on who will struggle the most or not, so we’ll see.”
He was also asked about how useful it will be to have his teammate just behind him for strategy. The Red Bull driver just said: “I mean we want to look ahead, right? We’ll see tomorrow, and it’s not going to be easy.”
“Every year is different,” says Verstappen while remembering his first win in 2016
Verstappen had scored his F1 maiden win in the 2016 Gran Premio de España. During the post-qualifying chat in the print media pen, he was asked to reflect on what happened 10 years ago in the Barcelona-Catalunya circuit and the possibilities for a repeat on Sunday’s race.
Still, the Dutch driver remained cautelous. “I don’t think like that. It was good memories, but it was a long time ago now, and I don’t think about that anymore.
“Every race, every year is different, whatever happens.
“So I just want to try and focus on my race tomorrow and see if we can actually be in that fight or not with the cars around us,” he concluded.
Verstappen on what his Red Bull needs to stay in the fight
The four-time world champion briefly spoke on what he still needs from his RB22. “I think as a driver you always want more downforce, you always want a better car mechanically.”
“That’s what we’re working on constantly, to try and improve certain aspects of the car,” Verstappen concluded.
“I’m sure also all the other teams are doing the same thing, they’re never happy, even if I’m P1 for sure they’re not happy, and they want to find more performance.”
