‘Everyone was scared’ – Max Verstappen’s verdict on wet Las Vegas

Max Verstappen felt the wet conditions in Las Vegas Grand Prix qualifying were “a little bit too much”.

The four-time world champion missed out on pole position to McLaren’s Lando Norris by three tenths as he claimed second place on the grid for Sunday’s grand prix.

But Verstappen, a wet-weather master, admitted grip levels were too low to enjoy the qualifying session.

“It was super slippery, it felt like ice,” the Red Bull driver said. “To be honest, not a lot of fun to do. I mean, I love driving in the wet, but this for me is a little bit too much, I would say.

“You just have to be super careful and honestly, I was surprised there were not too many incidents. So everyone was behaving, I think, quite well – or scared.”

Norris labelled qualifying “stressful as hell” as he survived a wobble on his final lap which secured a third consecutive pole.

“Pretty nasty,” the Briton said of the conditions. “Probably some of the worst – not like the worst conditions – you know, it’s been wetter. It’s just feels like you may as well have been out on slicks, to be honest.

“It was so slippery, difficult. The amount of wheelspin you have in places, how easy it was to lock tyres, the white lines, the yellow lines – just everything was pretty tough. So, yeah, even more satisfied with the end result because of how tricky it was out there today.”

“Sketchy” conditions questioned

Alex Albon said conditions were among the most challenging he has faced in F1. The Williams driver exited in Q1 and will start Sunday’s grand prix 16th.

“I’m surprised we were driving, to be honest, in many ways,” Albon said. “Like, the aquaplaning into Turn 14 was incredible. And it was a little bit of a lottery if you got it or not. But yeah, it was sketchy.

“I think it’s going to be the way it is and yeah, maybe call into question if we should have been driving. I think it could have been red-flagged and we could have gone again and stopped maybe some of the randomness of the aquaplaning.

“I think they could see that cars were aquaplaning and maybe could have done something about it a bit earlier, but at the same time I think it was okay.”

Alpine’s Pierre Gasly commented: “I don’t think I’m going to sleep tonight with the amount of adrenaline I still have in me. It’s crazy conditions. The grip level was so low.”

Meanwhile Haas’ Oliver Bearman described the conditions as “the worst I’ve ever experienced in my life, in karting, F3, F2… anything.”

Some drivers did find it fun, however.

“More fun than what I thought,” said Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso after qualifying seventh. “Even one hour ago when I jumped in the car, I thought it could be an extremely difficult session because even on dry tyres we don’t have much grip on this track.

“And I thought it’s going to be a long evening, full of red flags and incidents and things like that. And nothing happened. So the track conditions and the tyres worked really well, better than expected. We had a fun session, it was nice to drive and I did enjoy it.

“I was expecting that level of difficulty, but as I said, maybe it was not that difficult. I think there are places like Austria, I would say Brazil as well, with some of the rivers crossing the track, that we have this groove, tarmac and things like that, that has been more challenging than today, if I say so. As I said, it was not too bad.”

Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar also enjoyed the challenge, saying: “I never got to really try myself in the rain in an F1 car, so today was the first time, and honestly I enjoyed it very much. Especially on the full wet, it was good fun.”