Red Bull threw “kitchen sink” at Verstappen car, says Horner

His pole was in jeopardy after he was said to have been driving “unnecessarily slowly” during the session when he thwarted a lap by Mercedes driver George Russell, who had to take dramatic evasive action.

Russell finished second in the session.

“To be honest, I didn’t expect this,” said Verstappen. But well done to the team for giving me a car that feels a bit more connected, and once the car comes together a bit better you feel like you can push harder. For me it felt much better in qualifying.

“We made a few changes to the car, but I never thought it would make such a leap in performance, so that’s promising. I hope it holds up in the race tomorrow, I don’t know yet, but it felt more stable for one lap and that’s exactly what we need.

“I am very happy to be on pole. It’s been a while. It will be a tough race physically, but I think also in terms of the tires…

“I hope that things will get a little better with the setup we currently have on the car. It’s very close behind and you could see in the sprint that Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari were all fast. Now it seems like we’re in the mix.”

Horner said: “What a great turnaround. Max delivered in the most spectacular way.”

“We threw the kitchen sink at it and pretty much everything that could be changed, we changed. You never know if everything is in balance, but it worked and he did it.”

Russell said he had to take evasive action when he hit Verstappen, saying it was “super dangerous”.

“I ended up walking through the gravel everywhere so it felt like the ground was dragging over the curb and through the gravel,” he explained.

“So I hope it didn’t do any harm. Maybe that’s why we haven’t improved. I don’t know, but it was a bit difficult – two corners before we started the lap.”

Verstappen said he slowed down to gain a lead because he had two cars ahead of him before his final run for pole position.

“I think George was excited,” he said. “He wanted to come over and get around. And that’s okay, because I mean, everyone is trying to get their position for the best possible start to the round.