Max Verstappen has revealed Sebastian Vettel told him he will break his record of nine consecutive victories after the home favourite put his Red Bull on pole position for Sunday’s Dutch Grand Prix.
The unstoppable Verstappen will equal four-time world champion Vettel’s streak from 2013 if he takes the chequered flag in front of 105,000 expectant fans.
Verstappen starts his quest from the front after he topped a chaotic wet-dry qualifying session in Zandvoort. Verstappen finished nearly six tenths clear of second-placed Lando Norris with a mighty final lap.
George Russell qualified third for Mercedes, one place ahead of Alex Albon – the London-born driver continuing his impressive campaign with Williams. Lewis Hamilton lines up only 13th after he was surprisingly eliminated in Q2.
Verstappen dominated the opening half of the season, taking 10 victories from the 12 rounds so far, and he has emerged from the sport’s summer break still as the man to beat.
He last failed to win in Azerbaijan on April 30, and it will be a major surprise if his crushing run comes to a halt in front of his orange-clad army.
“After five wins in a row, Seb texted me to say, ‘well done with what you are doing at the moment, keep it up, you are going to get the record’,” said Verstappen following his eighth pole of the campaign.
“I was like, ‘that’s nine wins in a row, and that is something very impressive’. I never thought I would be able to get to eight. If it is possible tomorrow of course I go for it.
“But it is not something that is in the back of my head. I am not in this sport to try and break records. I am just here to win in the moment.”
Verstappen is in a league of his own as he closes in on a hat-trick of titles.
But it has been suggested that his reign – akin to Michael Schumacher’s emphatic dominance for Ferrari at the turn of the century – has been a turn-off for the sport’s booming fanbase.
“It is clear that unpredictability is what makes the sport exciting,” said Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff.
“You want to look at the television on Sunday and see a fight. That is not the case at the moment.
“But that is because one team and one driver are doing a much better job than anybody else, and we need to acknowledge that.”
While Verstappen has been aided by his all-conquering Red Bull machine, it is worth noting that his team-mate Sergio Perez – the only other driver to win a race this year – qualified seventh here, 1.3 seconds behind in the same car.
Qualifying started on a wet track before a dry line emerged for Q3. Two red flags followed as Logan Sargeant and Charles Leclerc crashed out.
By this stage, Hamilton was back in the Mercedes garage. The seven-time world champion appeared to be impeded by AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda and he failed to post a time fast enough to progress to Q3.
The incident was noted by the stewards, but Hamilton did not feel he lost time. However, Wolff added: “Tsunoda is a nice guy but he clearly impeded Lewis.
“The answer is to penalise. If you know you don’t go to prison for cheating tax, you cheat the tax. I don’t understand why these things are not penalised.
“You could say Lewis dived on the inside and it didn’t cost him much. But going from a dry line, to a wet line, and back to a dry line costs time and a tenth of a second would have put him into Q3.
“We need to be harsh on penalties and then people will start looking in their mirrors.”
Hamilton: 'I should have been in pole position' for Las Vegas Grand Prix
Lewis Hamilton believes he should have been starting in pole position at the Las Vegas Grand Prix on Sunday despite qualifying 10th.
The Mercedes driver had finished top in both of Friday’s practice sessions before laying down the fastest time in Q2 as well.
Hamilton locked up during his first run in Q3 before a track limits violation in his second run saw his lap time deleted.
The British driver rued his drop-off in form that saw his team-mate and compatriot George Russell take pole position.
"I should have been on pole but I'm not, so it is what it is. C'est la vie, you live to fight another day," he told Sky Sports.
"It is what it is. It's been a good weekend so far, so I'll give it my best shot tomorrow. Congrats to George.
"The car felt different in Q3, and the stability was not there for some reason. But I had it in all the other sessions.
"But ultimately I didn't put the laps together. I'm really quite far back so I'll just see what I can do from there.”
Elsewhere in the paddock, McLaren’s Lando Norris will start in sixth position on the grid, one place behind his title rival Max Verstappen.
Norris needs to beat the Red Bull driver by at least three points to keep his title aspirations alive and take the championship race to the Qatar Grand Prix next week.
He does not, however, favour his chances against the serial winner.
"I will do everything I can. That's what I'm here to do. I'm not going to give up 'til the end even if chances are extremely thin," Norris said.
"I'm here to do the best in every race I can whether I'm fighting for a championship or not. We have [Verstappen] just ahead of us. We have a chance to beat him.
"Whether he wins or not tomorrow, for me it is not going to change anything, he is pretty likely to win the championship.”
Norris currently sits 62 points short of Verstappen who leads the Driver’s Championship on 393 points, though McLaren lead Ferrari by 36 points in the Constructors’ Championship.
"Do I wish it could have gone a bit further? Sure. But the race was lost in the first races of the year, when Max got too far ahead. I am proud and happy with what we’ve done,” Norris added.
"Be optimistic and look ahead to what we can achieve. I don’t expect anything much, for sure."
Russell revels in 'surprise' pole position for Las Vegas Grand Prix
George Russell "put it all on the table" to surge to a surprise pole position at the Las Vegas Grand Prix with an impressive qualifying display.
After Mercedes had topped all three practice sessions on Friday, Russell was able to convert his team's electric practice pace into a fourth career pole.
The Briton finished 0.098 seconds ahead of the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz, while Alpine's Pierre Gasly built on his podium at Interlagos last time out by finishing third, with Charles Leclerc starting in fourth.
While it was Russell’s out-going Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton who swept Thursday’s free practice sessions, the seven-time world champion could only manage 10th.
Asked if pole was expected coming into the weekend, Russell replied: “Honestly, absolutely not. It feels incredible to be back on pole.
“We’ve been so quick all weekend and I just knew coming into that last Q3 lap… that’s going to be the one that counts. It doesn’t matter what happened before then.
"I'm just so happy, and we've got to do some deep diving to understand why we’ve been so quick so far this weekend, because it was a real surprise!”
"Ultimately, you’ve got to put it on the table sometimes. I felt confident in myself – I knew if I did a clean lap, it would be enough to secure a front row, so to get pole position is incredible," Russell said.
"Ultimately, we’ve had a few good qualifying recently – we need to convert that into a win now."
Max Verstappen will share the third row of the grid with his sole remaining opponent for the title, Lando Norris, after qualifying fifth.
The Dutchman knows that he must finish ahead of the Briton's McLaren to claim a fourth consecutive world title, putting him level with Alain Prost and Sebastian Vettel.
However, Verstappen believes that Red Bull are "just a bit too slow" after struggling for one-lap performance throughout the course of the weekend's action.
"We have been struggling to get the tyres to work over a lap, and we are slow on the straights as well, especially in qualifying," Verstappen said.
"You can see our rear wing, it’s trimmed down quite a lot, around the DRS flap, so when we open DRS we don’t get the gains like others do, so that makes it a bit more complicated around here.
“But that’s our own fault. We know that, that's a compromise we have, but nevertheless, I tried to do the best I could.
"It was quite close for P3, little details that could have been a bit better maybe, but overall I'm happy with the laps, was not much more in it."
'Like driving on ice' - Verstappen and Red Bull struggle in Vegas practice
Max Verstappen claimed that his Red Bull felt like "driving on ice" after struggling in Friday practice ahead of his potential coronation at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Verstappen entered the weekend hoping to leave with a fourth world title, but a fifth and 17th place finish in the opening practice sessions suggested it would be far from easy.
The Dutchman posted a soft-tyre lap just before Alex Albon caused a red flag midway through the second session, with Verstappen unable to improve on his time after that.
It left him two seconds off the pace set by the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton, revealing that the cold temperatures had an effect on his tyres.
"For me, it feels massively tyre-related. The balance of the car is not even wrong, I think," he said. "We just have no grip, like driving on ice at the moment."
“Yeah, [it was] slippery. I think we struggled a lot with making the tyres work, over one lap especially.
“The long run I think started off a bit more competitive, but even there I think we need to fine-tune a few things. The one-lap pace is quite far off.
“It’s quite unique conditions around here, and it’s very cold, but at the end of the day it’s the same for everyone, so we need to try and understand what we’re doing wrong."
Red Bull were down in the speed traps and Helmut Marko revealed the team had the wrong rear wing which has put them on the back foot.
However, after topping the timesheets in both practice sessions, Hamilton was left mystified by Mercedes’ surprisingly strong pace after a poor showing in Interlagos last time out.
The seven-time world champion clocked the fastest lap of the day as drivers up and down the grid struggled to extract performance around the low-grip track.
His team-mate George Russell was similarly impressive, finishing in P2 and P3 across the two sessions to indicate that Mercedes are the team to beat this weekend.
“I mean that’s the first time I’ve had a day like that this year. The car was feeling generally good in FP1, in FP2 less so," Hamilton said.
“Difficult to know exactly where we are or why we are where we are but really enjoying driving the track and I think we’ll see whether the car is the same tomorrow.
“The race pace is not that great so the work we have to do overnight is to figure out how to have better race pace without losing actual pace throughout the lap.
"But it was nice to get like consecutive sectors, and the car not throwing me off which was nice."
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