"Nicely executed" F1 tow doesn't explain full gap to Hamilton - Verstappen

Max Verstappen believes he gained one-tenth from Sergio Perez’s slipstream on his first run of Q3 in Formula 1 qualifying for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Verstappen stormed to his 10th pole position oဣf the season ahead of F1 title rival Lewis Hamilton.

Hamilton was the heavy favourite for pole going into qualifying after topping two of three precedin🐟g practice sessions, b📖ut Verstappen’s 1m22.109s in Q3 proved to be untouchable.

On the run down to ꦿTurn 9, Verstappen benefitted from a tow from his teammate.

Sp♉eaking after qualifying, Verstappen revealed that it was discussed beforehand but the time gained from it didn’t explain the nearly four-tenth gap tꦇo Hamilton.

“Yeah it was discussed before quali,” he said. “It was veryꩲ nicely executed as well. It’s not whatever the gap was, I might have gained a tenth towards Turn 9, it’s not a massively long straight. 

“Nevertheless, Checo is a great teammate and a real pleasure♎ to work with so also a big thank you to him.”

Verstappen confirmed that they didn’t practice t💖he tow in practice.

“No we didn’t,” he added. “Checo and I said to ourselves we were confident to do it just for that one run and that’s what we did🌊.”

To secure his maiden F1 ch🅺ampionship, Verstappen simply needs𓃲 to finish ahead of Hamilton. 

Even though it’s the biggest day of his career on Sunday, Verstappen 🍸says he’s going to be preparing as normal.

“I just need to focus on what we can control as a team an🍎d the coming hours, what I think is most important is to have a good sleep but also I have friends and family around so I am not going to do anything different to what I normally have been doing,” he explained.

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