Vettel Surprised by Red Bull’s Strategy in Qualifying

Sebastian Vettel admitted that Red Bull choosing the hypersofts in qualifying left him flummoxed about their strategy. The German took pole for Ferrari for the first time in Montreal since 2001. It was his fourth pole position of the season.

Both Ferrari and Mercedes used the second-softest tyres, the ultrasofts in Q2 to avoid using them to start the Grand Prix on Sunday. But Red Bull decided otherwise and went with the hypersofts for that session. Speaking about Saturday’s qualifying, Vettel said, “It was a very smooth session for us.”

“We were briefly talking about what we wanted to do, trying to figure everything out. For me it was pretty straight-forward and in terms of strategy, we did what we wanted to do.”

He revealed why he was surprised with Red Bull. “I don’t think the hypersoft is a good race tyre. I’m a bit surprised that both of the Red Bulls chose that, but I guess they have their reasons”, said Vettel.

Despite topping all practice sessions, Max Verstappen could only qualify in third place and that too, after a monster lap right at the end. He spoke about how the hypersofts were working for them and how the qualifying sessions worked out as they expected.

“We think it is a good tyre for us and in the long runs, I felt good on it. No big surprises. We thought that Ferrari and Mercedes were going to qualify on the ultras”, said Verstappen.

He admitted that Ferrari and Mercedes were expected to be better in qualifying, “We extracted the best we could have from qualifying. We knew that in Q3, it was going to be a bit harder for us, but to still be so close was good.”

“Our weekend has been really strong and every session we have made good progress with the car. In qualifying, the track grips up quite a lot so you just have to follow the track. Very happy”, added Verstappen.