SINGAPORE — Max Verstappen believes he missed out on a shot at pole position in Singapore after losing performance in the dirty air of title rival Lando Norris in the final sector of his final lap.
Verstappen qualified in second place, 0.182 seconds behind George Russell on pole position, but was within 0.05 seconds of the pole position lap before he came across the dirty air generated by Norris’ McLaren.
The Red Bull driver understeered through Turn 15, which he claims was due to his proximity to the McLaren, and aborted his lap coming out of Turn 16.
“That’s what happens when there’s a car in front of you just cruising, just two seconds in front,” he said in reference to Norris after the session.
“That’s noted, [and] will be remembered as well.”
Norris, who qualified fifth, was on his way back to the pits after completing his final Q3 attempt earlier in the session.
Verstappen, who left his final lap right until the last moment, said drivers on slow laps know to leave bigger gaps to cars on flying laps in Singapore due to the impact dirty air can have on the car behind.
“I mean, the lap itself was coming nicely, but again, around here, to nail all the corners is very tough,” Verstappen said. “But yeah, then unfortunately I had a car like two seconds in front of me in the final chicane.
“In qualifying, you cannot have that. You cannot have any kind of disturbance when you want to push in Q3. And that’s what happened.
“I had to abort the lap because of that. So that was a bit unfortunate. Otherwise, I think it would have been a very close battle for first. But it’s what it is.
“There’s nothing that you can do about that. So you just move forward.”
Asked if he would speak to Norris about the incident, Verstappen added: “No. I think it’s quite clear, you know?
“That’s something that is not nice when it happens to someone. I think in general, we’re always quite good at that. All the drivers, we try to stay out of the way.
“I mean, sometimes, of course, it’s always a bit more complicated in certain scenarios. So every scenario is a bit different. But in this case, in Q3 with only 10 cars on the track, I think could have been avoided.”
Norris appeared bemused by Verstappen’s post-session comments, saying he was not aware there was an issue at the time.
“I was like three seconds ahead or something,” he said. “I can’t work it out [what Verstappen was upset about]. It’s just normal.
He added: “They always complain. They complain about everything. It’s Red Bull.”
