Saudi Arabian Grand Prix: 'Fun to drive, but the danger is there'
- Published
The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is live on BBC Radio 5 Live and the BBC Sport website
Race starts at 17.30 GMT
Max Verstappen could almost see pole position, he could certainly feel it, as he headed towards the last corner of what looked set to be one of the big qualifying laps of a season in which he and Lewis Hamilton have pushed each other to new heights.
The Red Bull driver's steering-wheel dashboard was telling him he was 0.3 seconds up on his previous best lap. Verstappen knew Hamilton had just beaten his time by 0.14secs but the Dutchman had more than enough pace to snatch it back.
And he knew pole would be so, so valuable.
Verstappen is leading Hamilton by eight points with two races to go this season. If he beats Hamilton in Sunday's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, that lead will extend to a position where only misfortune at the final race in Abu Dhabi next weekend could stop Verstappen being world champion. And pole was the best way to set about trying to do that.
But when Verstappen braked for the long, left-hand hairpin that ends the lap at the high-speed and demanding new Jeddah Corniche circuit, his front wheel locked.
Verstappen kept pushing, hoping to finish the lap. But the car washed wide on the exit of the corner and clouted the wall, breaking its right rear suspension. And that was that. Hamilton was on pole.
Making things worse for Verstappen, Valtteri Bottas also beat him with his final lap, and so Mercedes have locked out the front row, a position from which they can theoretically control the race. And Verstappen's team-mate Sergio Perez was only fifth, beaten by the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc - another stunning lap out of nothing from him.
"I saw it was a good lap," Verstappen said. "I was 0.3secs faster on my delta and then I thought on the last corner there might be still a bit to gain.
"I knew of course Lewis was 0.1-0.15secs ahead, but I approached it like I always do in qualifying. But somehow I just locked up. And I have to see if I actually braked later or not. From my feeling, I didn't.
"Just really disappointing. It was a really good lap. I was really enjoying it and then not to finish it is extremely disappointing, especially now in this fight you want to start first."
Hamilton, right, took his 103rd career pole
Hamilton pulls it out of the bag
Until the last couple of minutes of qualifying, Hamilton had looked in trouble. The seven-time champion had a scrappy session to end what had been a scrappy day.
Final practice had not gone that well. Slower than Verstappen, Hamilton and his team had made mistakes. Hamilton had made an error in Turn One, after which he inadvertently blocked Pierre Gasly's Alpha Tauri. Then later on the same lap, he did the same - in a much more dangerous situation - to Haas driver Nikita Mazepin.
Hamilton was called to the stewards for both the Mazepin incident and for allegedly ignoring double waved yellow warning flags.
Blame for the Mazepin incident was firmly laid at the door of the team, who had not warned Hamilton of the Russian's approach, and who were fined 25,000 euros. And the yellow flag incident came to nothing when it was found that there had in fact been no yellow flags, or warning lights, for Hamilton to ignore.
Still, it was a nervy build-up to qualifying and Hamilton seemed to be carrying that into the session.
The car was a handful and he made a series of mistakes. There was a slide at Turn One. In second qualifying, he got on the radio to the team and said: "I don't know what we're doing. I have no grip out here."
There was another slide on his first run in the top 10 shootout, this time a heartstopping one at the fast Turn Eight. And when he did get a lap in, it was nearly 0.4secs slower than Verstappen's first attempt.
But Hamilton being Hamilton, he pulled out a big one when it mattered. He improved his own previous best by more than 0.5secs, and leapfrogged Verstappen, who then made his fateful error.
"What a difficult track this is," Hamilton said. "All of us were pushing so hard.
"The track shifted a little bit. I don't know if it was just the wind but it made it so difficult with tyre temperatures and we were having to do heavy quick out laps to try to get the tyres working and in the right window, which was very odd.
"The Bulls were definitely faster today, I don't know if we lost performance or they just gained.
"Wooh. That was one of the most intense qualifying sessions we've had for a while.
"This one was heart in mouth for all of us. If Max had finished his lap, he would have been ahead, but we have to work as a team tomorrow."
Verstappen hit the wall just before setting what would have been pole position time
Watch for Verstappen in the race
What happened to Verstappen? Was it the pressure? Had Verstappen - so cool, so relaxed, so far this year in the white heat of his first title challenge - finally buckled? Had Hamilton pushed him to it?
Some will say so. Others will reject the idea, and say these things happen. Whatever, it puts him in a tricky position in the race.
The Red Bull is fast, but Verstappen has two Mercedes in front of him, at least at the start.
Mercedes will be hoping that Bottas does a better job of holding Verstappen back than he has done a few times in recent races. But Verstappen is like a force of nature. It's hard not to imagine the race becoming a straight fight between him and Hamilton again.
There is still the spectre of a five-place grid penalty if Red Bull find Verstappen's gearbox was damaged in his accident - which is certainly possible - but even then he would be expected to find his way back into second place soon enough.
On Saturday evening, Verstappen was already turning his attention to what might be possible.
"In a way it also gives me hope," he said, "because in Qatar [at the last race] we were 0.45secs off and in the race you know it is going to be really tough. But here I do think we have a good shot at it.
"Today I'm upset with myself but still it's still two races to go and a lot of things can happen.
"I feel good with the car. It's a nice battle and it's exciting and you go into a session not knowing who's going to be ahead of the two teams. That's always very cool, and hopefully it's going to be the same tomorrow."
The Jeddah Corniche circuit is very fast, and Ferrari's Leclerc was the first to come to grief in practice
Will there be incidents?
And what of that race? The new Jeddah track is full of jeopardy.
The pole position lap was set at an average speed of nearly 158mph. The track is bounded by walls, and there are a couple of places where, if a car goes off, there will be an almighty accident - as happened to Leclerc on Friday. Many fear there is the potential for chaos in the race.
"If you're starting the race and one car hits the wall on the right side, they can bounce back on to the track." Verstappen said.
"It is a lot of fun to drive. The blind corners with traffic are tricky, but impeding and stuff like that, it can be potentially very dangerous. It is a tricky one, fun to drive but the danger is there."
Somehow one suspects there are more twists to come in this season that just keeps on giving.
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