Red Bull team principal Christian Horner claimed that Max Verstappen is "a racer" while describing his feelings after the latter's surprise pole position at the 2024 Qatar Grand Prix qualifying session. The Dutch driver witnessed a dramatic turnaround in fortunes after finishing the Sprint race in P8 a couple of hours earlier.
After making some changes to his RB20, the newly crowned four-time F1 world champion was on the pace of his rivals and knocked the pole position from George Russell by a mere 0.055s in the Q3 session.
While appearing on the F1TV's Post Race Show, the Red Bull team boss reflected on the pole position and said:
"Max has extracted every ounce of performance from it and our first official pole since Austria. He's just a racer. He just loves racing; he's so competitive and hungry. Whether it's a qualifying session, a Sprint, or a Grand Prix, he's gonna give it everything.
"These last two races for him have been effectively like Cup Finals so he's just throwing caution to the wind and going for it."
Max Verstappen gives his take on "crazy" P1 in Qatar GP qualifying
Red Bull driver Max Verstappen stated that he didn't expect to be in the pole position at the end of an eventful qualifying session in the 2024 Qatar Grand Prix on Saturday night.
Speaking to F1TV in his post-quali interview, the 27-year-old said:
"Crazy! I didn't expect this. Well done to the team to give me a car that feels a bit more connected and once the car is a bit more together, you can push harder and it felt a lot better in qualifying.
"We changed a bit on the car but I never thought it would make such a swing in performance, so that's promising. I hope it lasts tomorrow in the race. I don't know that yet. It just felt a lot more stable over one lap and that's exactly what we need. Very happy to be on the pole. It's been a while!"
It was Max Verstappen's ninth pole position of the season and his first since Austria although he qualified P1 in Spa but started the race from P11 after taking an engine penalty.
Verstappen predicted a "tough race physically and on the tyres" given the relentless nature of the track.