‘Never bet against me’: Verstappen issues warning after big quali turnaround as McLaren looms in final race

For a few hours on Saturday it seemed like Max Verstappen’s record-breaking season was going to end with a whimper.

It was yesterday afternoon that Verstappen got his first uninterrupted hour of practice after Friday’s running was interrupted by the need to field rookie drivers and then some lengthy red flags.

But what he felt he didn’t like. The car was sliding too much through the corners and then bottoming out and bouncing through the last sector.

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Three times he returned to his garage for set-up changes and three times he complained that the problem hadn’t been fixed.

He ended FP3 more than 0.7 seconds off the pace and searching for answers.

It was a situation reminiscent of the build-up to the Singapore Grand Prix, the only race this season Red Bull Racing couldn’t win and one of only three at which Verstappen didn’t mount the top step.

It was for different reasons, but there too the team couldn’t find a car balance that would unleash the RB19’s class-leading speed.

In fact it was so triggering for the team that Red Bull motorsport adviser Helmut Marko bet team principal Christina Horner €500 that Verstappen wouldn’t qualify on the front row.

“I think Helmut learnt his lesson,” Verstappen said afterwards. “Never bet against me.”

A final blind set-up change for qualifying paid handsome dividends, and the Dutchman cruised through the hour, topping all three segments and needing only one lap in Q3 to take his 12th pole of the season.

“It’s always a bit of a gamble because you don’t know,” he said of the changes he tried for the first time in Q1, by which time parc fermé rules committed him to the set-up. “We already tried a lot of things on the car which didn’t really seem to solve the problem.

“But I think [engineer Gianpiero Lambiase] stayed calm and he definitely went through a lot of options, and then with my feedback he came up with a very good set-up for qualifying.

“I’m very, very happy with that, but of course it’s always a bit of a gamble. You’re never 100 per cent sure.”

As it had done at 20 of the previous 21 grands prix, Red Bull Racing had found its way back to the front.

But as has been the way since the sport left Europe in September, the team did have a genuine challenger behind that so nearly spoiled the night — and it wasn’t Ferrari and Charles Leclerc.

McLAREN FIRES AGAIN AS NORRIS LAMENTS COSTLY ERROR

Oscar Piastri recorded the equal best qualifying result for a grand prix of his young career by battling to third on the grid behind Verstappen and front-row starter Charles Leclerc.

Back at a circuit he knows well from his junior career after a long spell of unfamiliar circuits outside of Europe, the Australian in his final race as a rookie is looking good to end the season on a high.

But there was more on the table for McLaren.

“I’ve just been struggling to get it together this weekend,” he said. “I think before qualifying I hadn’t done a lap without quite a major mistake this weekend, so I was struggling to get everything together.”

Piastri had been only 0.07 seconds down on pole as he hit the brakes for the turn 6-7 chicane, but through this slow pair of turns the Aussie lost 0.3 seconds he wouldn’t get back for the rest of the lap.

Poor performance through slow turns is a long-running trait of the MCL60, and it’s unsurprising that neither team nor driver had found the optimal balance for the complete circuit considering the lack of representative practice time this weekend.

Teammate Lando Norris was wielding the car a little better on his final lap. He made it all the way to the final sector with a slender 0.06-second advantage over Verstappen and was in with a shout for collecting just the second pole position of his career.

But a little moment into turn 12 led to a big slide beneath the hotel that blew it all, leaving him fifth — and customarily angry with himself.

“The car was very good out there,” he said. “I was on a lap quick enough to go P1. I didn’t do it.

“Another Saturday I’ve just thrown away. Disappointed.”

Deciding whether McLaren was a genuine chance to upset Red Bull Racing is difficult to assess.

Norris had been up by 0.06 seconds into turn 12 before he made his mistake, but on his previous lap he’d lost 0.1 seconds to Verstappen through the final sector. He was in the ballpark, but there’s no guarantee.

And it’s also not as easy as applying the improvement he’d made in the fast first two sectors to the slow final sector at Yas Marina.

The challenge of putting a lap together in Abu Dhabi is to keep the tyres alive long enough to ensure good traction through the street-style 90-degree corners at the end of the lap. Norris’s mistake would appear to signify that he’d spent the best grip from his tyres and therefore wouldn’t have quite made the difference even without the error.

The same problem appeared to catch out Verstappen, who lost time through the chicane and in the final sector on his last lap, with which he failed to improve.

Norris is frustrated to have made several Q3 errors this season, blowing front-row and possible pole chances. In this instance, though, it was only because of a Verstappen mistake that the chance presented itself.

Not that he’ll find that of much consolation.

CLOSE-CALL CONSTRUCTORS BATTLE DEEPENS MERCEDES MALAISE

Ferrari will start with a weak upper hand in the battle to overturn its four-point deficit to Mercedes for second in the constructors championship, with Leclerc on the front row and George Russell in fourth.

Neither of their teammates made Q3, with Lewis Hamilton knocked out a frustrated 11th and Carlos Sainz starting 16th after a Q1 disaster.

On balance that perhaps puts the ball in Mercedes’s court, with Hamilton easily within reach of the points. If Leclerc and Russell were to finish where they start, Hamilton would need to claim only eighth for his team to hold second.

Sainz would need a big first lap and a killer strategy to make up ground — though with nothing to lose, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Ferrari deploy him as an irritator for Mercedes, leaving him out just to be slow traffic around a circuit that makes passing difficult

Hamilton isn’t particularly optimistic after another underwhelming day in the car.

“Just struggling with balance,” Hamilton told Sky Sports. “I don’t have any answers. Honestly, at this point it is what it is.

“We set our cars up the same, but they don’t read the same, so there’s something not right on our side.”

And the fact Mercedes is in this position to begin with is deeply annoying for the team, which had appeared to have taken a step forward with an update in October only to find itself back in Ferrari’s clutches.

The end of the year — and of the W13 — can’t come soon enough for team boss Toto Wolff.

“FP3 was even, I would say, dominant,” he told Sky Sports of Russell claiming top spot in final practice earlier on Saturday.

“It just didn’t come together. Probably that’s what was in the car. Expectations were higher.

“I’m fed up with having explanations on why it didn’t go well. We were good in the hot, we weren’t in the cold. Previous days it has been the other way around.

“I’m happy this was the last qualifying of the season and we will come with a new car [in 2024].”

Wolff’s frustration sums up the last two years for Mercedes — confusion over why the car performs or doesn’t.

It might be just enough for Ferrari to sneak ahead in the final race.

LOGAN SARGEANT BOTTLES QUALIFYING ON CRUCIAL WEEKEND

The week started with Williams boss James Vowles saying that rookie Logan Sargeant’s future with the team remains undecided and that he has alternatives lined up to replace him if needed.

The American has been handed certain criteria he needs to meet to convince the team that he can flourish as a Formula 1 driver and make good on his promise of natural speed.

It’s hard to imagine his limp qualifying performance will have moved him any closer to sealing the deal.

He had two runs in Q1. Both laps were quick. The second was fast enough to crack Q2, where teammate Alex Albon qualified.

But both laps were deleted for the same track limits violation at the first turn. He was eliminated from qualifying without a time.

It meant he was on the receiving end of a perfect qualifying sweep by teammate Albon, who’s beaten him in all 22 grand prix qualifying sessions as well as all six sprints — an unenviable run of form.

There’s naturally been an uptick in speculation over his seat in the final round of the season, particularly after several F1-aspiring F2 drivers took part in first practice earlier this weekend.

Except for Sargeant’s seat, there’s no driver movement scheduled for 2024. Breaking onto the grid is harder than ever, which means there’s a backlog of F1-worthy talent waiting to get a crack.

Not all of them are guaranteed to be better than Sargeant. But if Williams isn’t convinced that Sargeant is going to get any better, then switching him out has limited downside and potentially much upside.

He has one more race to try to justify his place on the Formula 1 grid for a second season.