22/04/2022
NEWS STORY
Max Verstappen: "It was good out there today but also very easy to make mistakes, so luckily we mainly stayed out of trouble. We started on the slicks initially and then it started raining again, making the right call on how you wanted to prep your laps was key today and ultimately we chose the right one, so I'm of course very pleased with that. When I saw the yellow flags for Valterri I immediately lifted so there won't be any trouble there, it does cost you lap time but luckily the lap was still good enough for pole. Tomorrow looks to be dry and we haven't really driven these new cars a lot in the dry here so hopefully in FP2 we can understand the car a bit more in different conditions."
Sergio Perez: "Overall it's a disappointing day but we need to remember it's just the start of the weekend. It just didn't seem to work out for me today, we got a few things wrong. It was important to get the temperature on the tyres and we couldn't seem to get the right out lap, we were just warming up the tyres and then we had another red flag. I am pleased with the pace of the car though, I am looking forward to tomorrow, hopefully we are able to progress through the field during the sprint and get a good start position for the race on Sunday."
Christian Horner, Team Principal & CEO: "Max did a super job today, it was an unusual qualifying and the one lap that turned out to count was thankfully the lap we banked and there was just too much rain for anyone to respond. It was a shame for Checo because I think he would have been up there as well today with a clean lap, but that's encouraging for the F1 sprint tomorrow. Now the challenge will be to hold onto the lead tomorrow - we have got to get a good start, convert it and go from there. The aim tomorrow is to try and bag as many points as we can before the race on Sunday."
Check out our Friday gallery from Imola, here.