Max Verstappen says he believed a place on the front row of the grid was possible after qualifying third for Sunday's Mexican Grand Prix.
Just 0.8s separated the top eight drivers in a competitive Q3 session, as Verstappen claimed a spot on the second row, 0.350s adrift of Lewis Hamilton's pole time. The Dutchman was within 0.1s of Nico Rosberg and feels that second place could have been achieved had he been able to string together a perfect lap.
"I think it was getting better and better, so it is a shame in Q3 we couldn't quite get the lap together otherwise I think P2 was definitely possible," Verstappen said. "We are not too far behind and we have a different strategy as well, so it will be interesting. You have to be realistic, some other guys were on soft tyres. We had a good feeling with the car all weekend, it was behaving pretty well."
At the United States Grand Prix, Red Bull opted to split its approach, which saw Daniel Ricciardo start on the faster super-soft tyre with Verstappen on the more durable softs. In Mexico the team decided on the same strategy as both Verstappen and Ricciardo ran with the super-soft tyre in Q2 and will therefore start the race on Pirelli's softest available compound for this weekend.
Tyre degradation and tyre warm-up caused complaints throughout practice, while drivers continued to struggle in qualifying, particularly during Q3. Despite greater degradation on the super-soft tyre, Verstappen says he has no worries starting on the compound and targets making up places on the run down to Turn 1.
"Of course there is more degradation than the soft so it is up to me to make it last as long as we can, but at the start with such a long run to the first corner, if we get a good start then we have opportunities from there onwards."