Verstappen owes Jeddah miracle to this crucial factor: Sandbagging or something else?

Red Bull Racing seemed to struggle during the free practice sessions ahead of qualifying, only to see Max Verstappen edge out Oscar Piastri's McLaren and George Russell's Mercedes in the fight for pole. Sandbagging or something else?

It certainly didn't seem like it would play out that way during the first part of the weekend. McLaren team principal, Andrea Stella, thought Red Bull were sandbagging to put pressure on the papaya team. "The main differences were yesterday where we tried a lot of things," Verstappen clarified during the post-qualifying press conference.

What does Verstappen attribute the massive gap McLaren had throughout the weekend? The temperature, revealing Red Bull only made minor adjustments ahead of the qualifying session.

"Today, we chose the set-up that we thought was the right way forward here. From FP3 to qualifying was more like tiny adjustments."

"The gap in FP3 was massive. When the track is really hot, all the other teams except McLaren are lacking a lot of pace. Our tyres overheat more than theirs, and we can't keep it as well under control as them."

A win in the cards for Verstappen in Saudi Arabia?

One thing is one lap pace, another, entirely different is race trim performance. And that is where Verstappen sees his RB21 is lacking. "Up until now, not very confident, to be honest. My long runs weren't particularly great compared to Oscar (Piastri, ed.) or Lando (Norris, ed.)"

"I'm going to give it everything I have, for sure. Does it mean that I have enough? I don't know. But the car definitely took a bit of a step forward compared to what we were testing yesterday.

"I hope that will help our tyre life out as well, but difficult to say that gives an opportunity to fight. But like I said, I'm going to give it a go."

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