Red Bull made a tactical decision to sacrifice qualifying pace to be faster in Sunday's race, Max Verstappen revealed.
The Dutchman went second quickest in qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix, behind a very popular pole-sitter in Charles Leclerc. The Ferrari star did not need to set the fastest time given the penalties for his main rivals, but he did so anyway to delight the Tifosi.
Verstappen will start the race further back as a result of his five-place grid penalty for taking a new engine component. With that in mind, and overtaking necessary for the Red Bull, he explained that the team had made a conscious decision to make sure the car was fully set up for the race.
"It was close," he said in his on-track interview after the session on Saturday afternoon. "But in general, because we chose to go with a little bit more downforce around here, I think over one lap it isn't the best but for tomorrow it can be quite strong.
"I think all in all it was a good lap. I enjoyed the whole weekend so far. It will be an interesting battle tomorrow. [The plan for tomorrow is] just to stay out of trouble in the beginning and then start to work my way forward."
Team boss Christian Horner backed up that claim in an interview with Sky Sports a few minutes later. He told the broadcaster: "We thought it was going to be tight with Ferrari. In qualifying, in particular we knew that would be the case.
"We perhaps compromised qualifying slightly to hopefully give the drivers a better race car for tomorrow. Let's see if that trade pays off.
"It is still tricky to overtake here. Spa is an easier track to overtake on, but with these new cars you should be able to follow close out of the two Lesmos. Theoretically, you should be able to run closer which should put you in a position to overtake."
Meanwhile, Leclerc was delighted to achieve what was expected of him given how many of his rivals had grid penalties. "It wasn't an easy qualifying session," said the Monegasque. "I knew that there was quite a bit of potential in the car but I didn't quite put it all together. I knew that in the last lap in Q3, I had to put it all together and I managed to do it."
