And welcome to our liveblog for qualifying for the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix. It’s the penultimate race of the season and, although it’d have been nice to have either championship still alive, these dead rubbers can often produce exciting races with that end-of-term feeling. The good news is that we have three different cars in the top three on the grid. The bad news is that Max Verstappen, who sits on pole, is going to take some beating today.
He was just over a tenth of a second ahead of Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari and just under two tenths away from Lewis Hamilton in third. It was a decent effort from both Vettel and Hamilton but neither of them had enough to challenge the supreme Verstappen, who was quickest in Q1, Q2 and Q3.
Here’s what he had to say after his second pole position of the season yesterday.
I’m very happy with pole here today and the car and engine were performing really strongly together. We made a few improvements overnight and even after FP3 we made some final touches to the car and it really came alive in qualifying. Straight away from Q1 the car was flying and even though Q3 was a little more tricky as the temperature increased the car still felt good.
Going purple in the middle sector and to be on pole by over a tenth here is a strong performance for us and Honda. Normally we have a quick race car so hopefully that will be the same tomorrow and I really enjoy driving on this track. I’m expecting an exciting and hopefully an enjoyable race, so now we just have to finish it off tomorrow.
Vettel, meanwhile, is reasonably confident of his chances in the race, but seemed concerned about tire wear. Ferrari are on much better form here than in Austin two weeks ago, but whether they can continue that through the race remains to be seen.
We improved the car, it felt better and it was coming alive in quali, I am reasonably optimistic that we are in good shape for the race, but we will have to wait and see. It is supposed to be a bit warmer and it will be important to look after the tires and to make the right strategy calls.
As ever, I’ll be here for the next few hours to take you through all the build-up, live updates and reaction from the Brazilian GP.
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