We had to switch the tyres in but we knew the pace was there and we showed it on that last lap. Verstappen, trying desperately to find a positive, said: “It’s terrible but in general qualifying was good. They have concentrated on the single lap and we expected to be much stronger. “They got their soft tyre in the window with a single warm-up lap and had a dominant package,” he admitted. Toto Wolff knew that until that moment Verstappen and Red Bull had Mercedes beaten.

According to Verstappen, he braked at the same point he had on his first run.

Not with a Bottas Mercedes still on a hot lap. The idea of driving a conservative last corner because he was up on his delta would not have entered his head. This was a guy with total confidence in his own ability determined to look after his own destiny. Headline writers may well have Max cracking under pressure, but that would likely be a flawed assessment. One corner from a sensational pole: Max walks away He was hugely scary to watch through the flat-out Turn 22 after going purple in sector two as well. With total commitment, the Red Bull flirted outrageously with the Turn 2 wall en route to a fastest first sector. The gladiators were doing their thing and Verstappen embarked on what would have been the lap of the year had he completed it. Verstappen beat him to go to the top of the times by 0.38sec, Bottas then went second but Lewis, with a fine second run, took back provisional pole. Hamilton had a big moment at Turn 9 on his first attempt, aborted, went again and was quickest but on the radio requesting an extra hole of front wing between his runs.

Now though, it was all about who could get the most out of the soft-compound tyre in Q3. On his first Q2 run Hamilton initially had concerns: “I don’t know what we’re doing, I have no grip out here…” It was only a temporary state of affairs and Lewis finished up topping the session by 0.23sec from Perez as the entire top 10 save Lando Norris went through to Q3 using the medium-compound Pirelli. Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas topped Q1, split by three-hundredths, while the main acts did little more than ensure smooth progression to Q2, Verstappen fifth and Hamilton ninth. Sign-up now for access to a limited number of articles.

Motogp qualifying