Max Verstappen still remains cautious amid Lewis Hamilton's 10-place grid penalty after a thrilling Saturday qualifying session at the Formula 1 Turkish Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton topped the timesheets with blistering pace and a ‘best-case' scenario as he out-qualified fellow Mercedes teammate, Valterri Bottas, by a tenth of a second, before getting pushed back to 11th on the grid due to grid penalties.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen finished the session slower than he would have liked, trailing Hamilton by 0.328 seconds — the Dutchman will line up next to Bottas on the front row, while Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and Alpha Tauri's Pierre Gasly make up the second row.
Despite Hamilton starting in the middle of the field, he remains optimistic that a race win is still within reach. Verstappen acknowledges that the 7-time world champion is expected to have exceptional race pace on Sunday. The Red Bull star will look to get ahead of Bottas as soon as possible to avoid getting caught up in between the two Mercedes drivers.
Via Matt Moldrige of Sky Sports:
“Of course, Lewis will have a bit of a harder job coming to the front but I think it will be still quite difficult to keep them behind us, the pace they showed in qualifying that also in their long runs.”
“We'll try everything we can, of course, but we also need to stay realistic and I don't think there's a lot you can force or change, but let's see tomorrow how difficult it is to pass, because we don't really have a real indication.”
It'll be interesting to see if Verstappen can capitalize on this opportunity to retake the lead in the Formula 1 World Drivers' Championship, or will Lewis Hamilton pull off another magnificent drive to steal an important win to extend his lead over his rival?
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