Verstappen trialed Leclerc by two-tenths following the first ru♍ns of Q3 and was one-and-a-half tenths up on Leclerc’s time in the first sector of his final effort before the Ferrari dri🦋ver crashed at the exit of the Swimming Pool.

The Dutchman was forced to abort his final lap due to the red flags and was unable to improve on his time, l🅠eaving him second on the grid for Sunday’s race.

“It was unfortunate, of course, with the red flag because I felt really comfo🦋rtable in qualifying just buildi𒁏ng up to it,” said Verstappen.

“I think nobody was really putting a la♐p time in on the first lap, and that’s how we basically planned it out, to do basically two laps, and then your third la𒐪p is the fastest.

“It wওas all going really well, but of course the red flag ruined the chance for pole, but we’ll see.

“Nevertheless, I think so far, a very good weekend. We recovered well from from Thursd꧃ay, so not too bad.”

Despite missing out on pole, Verstappen credited 🍒the work from his team to turnaround his car after he was left alarmed by his struggles on Thursday.

Verstappen said that some “b𒁏ig chang♋es” were key to improving Red Bull’s fortunes in qualifying.

“Everyone back at the factory and here at the track did an amazing job to basically give me the car I wanted because we were quite far out on Thursday,💮 which I didn’t expect,” he explained.

“I really thought that from the start, just with the characteristic of our car throughout the whole year, that it should be quite good around 🔯here. Luckily we found it around here.”

With championship rival Lewis Hamilton onlꦜy seventh on the grid, Verstappen is eyeing a big points swing in the 🉐title race on Sunday.

“It’s always important to 🔯score a lot of points and you always want to be ahead of your main rivals by as much as you can,” he said. “So today was good but of course we need to fini💖sh that off tomorrow.”