Verstappen explains focus for Spanish Grand Prix as he reacts to P3 in Qualifying

Max Verstappen has set out the areas that Red Bull will be focusing on during Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix, with the Dutchman left feeling positive about his P3 result in Qualifying.

Verstappen had finished no higher than fifth across all three practice sessions held at the Madring circuit, having admitted at the end of Friday that he and the team were still “getting up to speed” with each lap.

The four-time World Champion went fastest during Q2 of Qualifying, however, and later secured third place in Q3, beaten only by polesitter Lando Norris and championship leader Kimi Antonelli.

Quizzed on how he felt about the result afterwards – and if it was better than he had expected – Verstappen responded: “Yeah, the car was honestly in a quite decent window, and for us I think to be in the top three in Qualifying is good. We can be happy with that.

“I think still there's room for improvement – there can be some improvements made, especially in the final sector.

“That's where we really were struggling probably a little bit too much with our deployment strategy. So that's things to learn for in the future, but for us to be in the top three is good.”

Looking ahead to Sunday’s Grand Prix – the first Formula 1 race to be held at the Madring – Verstappen explained that tyre management will be a key focus for the event.

“[It could be] a long race, tough on tyres, so we'll be really about managing that and trying to really extract the most out of it and see what we can do,” the 28-year-old said.