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Max Verstappen qualified sixth for Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix, and whilst he was evidently a little disappointed not to be higher up the grid, he is confident that a better result can still be achieved in the race thanks to the podium he took from a lowly P16 in China last weekend.
"In general the whole qualifying was very positive and we improved with every session up until the last run where I just got hurt in the preparation," Verstappen explained. "Felipe (Massa) squeezed in front and I had to stay in first gear to keep a gap to him so the tyres cooled down which hurt my first sector.
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"If you lose straight away two tenths then it's not ideal and you try to catch up but it's very hard if the tyres are not in the window. The pace was there but just not on the last run when it counted, but sometimes that happens if you have some traffic. We have made many small improvements and tried to optimise everything which seemed to work and we understand the car more and more with every run that we do.
"We are definitely closer, I think Mercedes is still too fast for us but the Ferrari doesn't look too far ahead," he said of Red Bull in relation to its nearest rivals. "Our car seems to work much better on this track so hopefully we will get a clean start with no incidents and then see what we can do in the race.
"It was definitely possible to be a bit further forward but last time I started a bit further behind and ended on the podium so anything is possible."
Mason Hawker
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Lets hope RB can throw it in the mix