Verstappen shocked by Monza pole after last year’s “disaster”

On the back of his surprise pole position at this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, reigning champion Max Verstappen said that it was “big for us to get pole here” after last year’s struggles at Monza.

Although Red Bull desperately struggled for pace around the Autodromo Nazionale Monza last season, the Milton Keynes-based outfit has looked much more competitive since the start of the weekend.

Max Verstappen delivered once again when it really mattered, beating the McLaren duo of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri by setting the benchmark time in Q3 to claim pole for Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix.

His team-mate Yuki Tsunoda finally made it out in Q3 to secure a Q3 appearance. However, the Japanse driver did not put his flying laps together on the final part of qualifying and ended up tenth, but he will gain a place thanks to Lewis Hamilton’s five-place grid penalty.

Asked how special his pole lap was at the end of Q3, Verstappen replied: “It was good. It's always tough around here. Low downforce, easy to make mistakes on the braking or on entries because you have to commit, but with low downforce, that's not always easy.

“Also, you know, the closing speeds in certain corners to hit the apex perfectly. But I think that final lap was pretty decent. To get pole here for us is big. It's not always been a good track for us, especially last year was quite a bit of a disaster. So, yeah, this year much better and very happy to be first.

Asked whether he thought he would be able to fight for the pole position, Verstappen admitted that the final tweaks to the setup were necessary to bring the car into a better operating window.

“I think we had a good start to the weekend, so that was nice. That has been different at times. It still felt like we were lacking something, and then in FP3 it was a little bit better.

“Still not where I wanted it to be, so then some final tweaks, and that then brought it a bit closer to what I liked. I don’t think the car is ever going to be perfect around here just because of the low downforce feeling anyway.

“But at least it allowed me to attack corners, have the rotation that I needed at times, and that’s what you want,” the Dutchman added.

Pressed on to share his thoughts whether he believes that he can beat the McLarens in race trim, Verstappen admitted that race pace has not been his RB21’s strength so far this season.

“Difficult to say. I think this season so far, the race pace has not always been great. So I hope that I can do something tomorrow, but I think anyway it’s been a great day for us.

“We’ve been competitive today. We’ll try to do the best we can tomorrow, but of course to stay here will be tough, but we’ll see what we can do.”