“It Felt Terrible”: Max Verstappen Reveals Heart-Sinking Conversation With Charles Leclerc After Lucky Pole in Brazil

Max Verstappen and lucky. Those are two terms that shouldn’t have been used in the same sentence in 2023. Throughout this season, the Dutchman has been a class apart. He’s made his own luck. But if there was one venue where he would’ve taken getting all the luck he could, it would’ve been Interlagos. Of course, it would be. And it happened. Everything worked out in Verstappen’s favor when it needed to during qualifying at the Brazilian GP.

It wouldn’t have been qualifying at Interlagos without a few shocks and unexpected happenings. Just like last year—when Kevin Magnussen secured a shock pole in changing weather conditions—Interlagos welcomed that weather again. Just ten times worse, probably. And Verstappen gave his thoughts on the conditions.

The weather almost caught out Max Verstappen

Last time out in Brazil, Red Bull didn’t have a good outing. The Milton-Keynes team wanted to make amends this year, and everything seemed like it would go its way. Even with the Sprint format that Verstappen hates, he (as always) looked like the favorite for pole position. With reports of light rain coming in throughout qualifying, nothing seemed to deter Verstappen from his goal. But then, Q3 happened, and it came very close to being Verstappen’s fiercest rival for pole position.

In the short time between Q2 and Q3, the sky turned from a little hazy to almost outright dark, with rain clouds forming over the circuit. With increased winds and incoming rain, teams wanted to get out on track as soon as possible to avoid getting caught out like last season. Anticipating this, Red Bull sent Verstappen out among the first few drivers. Despite a scrappy lap, he stitched it together well enough and just in time to secure P1. Had he been even half a minute late (like his teammate), who’s to say he wouldn’t have been further down the order?

With Charles Leclerc lining up in P2, the two discussed the conditions before their post-qualifying interviews. When Verstappen stepped up to the mic, he said, “We didn’t know when [the rain] would hit in qualifying, we thought it would hit. But this is, of course, insane weather.” The weather literally went from light drizzle to torrential downpours in a matter of minutes. “Charles and I were discussing our laps, and it felt terrible. I think the wind started to change and started to be very strong and we lost a lot of lap time because of it.”

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While the conditions for Verstappen were terrible, Leclerc explained his thoughts a little differently.

The Brazilian GP qualifying was a “weird” experience for Leclerc

Second after second, the skies over Interlagos got darker and darker. Going for their first flying laps of Q3, drivers knew that would most likely be their only chance to put in a representative lap. Leclerc—as he does more often than not in qualifying—delivered and secured P2 with five minutes to go. After the stewards decided the session wouldn’t resume, it became official and Leclerc told his team, “This is the strangest thing ever. In my whole career, I never experienced that. It felt like it was raining but there was no rain around.”

When it rains, track temperatures usually drop, and drivers lose almost all grip. Even though it wasn’t raining when they went out for their first Q3 runs, the conditions felt that way. Leclerc repeated his thoughts in his post-qualifying interview. “There was no rain but the car was extremely difficult to drive, no grip. I was thinking about just coming in at the end of the lap, but then I finished in P2. So, a really good surprise but it’s a very weird one,” he said. 

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Where do you think Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc would’ve lined up had they not come out of the pits when they did?