Max Verstappen addresses having a private meeting with Mercedes boss Toto Wolff during the summer break

Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen missed out grabbing pole position in front of his home crowd at Zandvoort. In the post-qualifying media interaction, the 23-year-old driver addressed claims of a private meeting with Mercedes-AMG boss Toto Wolff during the summer break.

Fresh out of the mid-season break, Verstappen was likely looking at extending his lead over McLaren's Lando Norris in the drivers' table. Despite his best efforts, the young Dutchman could not beat the British driver in the final stage of qualifying. The latter finished over three-tenths ahead of Verstappen in Q3.

During the mandatory media interaction after the session, an F1 Journalist questioned the reigning world champion about having a secret meeting with Toto Wolff during the summer break.

"Which meeting?" Verstappen questioned (0:14 onwards).

"I don't remember." He further added, shutting down the rumor (0:20 onwards).

A Verstappen fan page posted a clip of the interaction on X. Here's a look at the post, captioned:

Q: Yesterday Toto talked about a meeting this summer between Mercedes and your management about a signing for 2025 Max: "Which meeting? 🙂" Q: Did you engage that meeting? Or only with your management? Max: "I don't remember 🙂"

Starting on the front row alongside the pole-sitter Lando Norris tomorrow, Max Verstappen will be looking for a quick getaway at the start of the 2024 Dutch Grand Prix.

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A look at Max Verstappen's weekend at Dutch GP so far

With the 2024 Formula 1 season resuming at the iconic Zandvoort circuit, reigning champion Max Verstappen was looking to dominate proceedings in front of his home crowd.

However, the young Dutchman was unable to keep up against the likes of McLaren's Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, and Mercedes-AMG's Lewis Hamilton and George Russell during the first and second Free Practice sessions (FP1 and FP2).

Adding to the damage was the red-flagged FP3 session, which further cut down the time for Verstappen and Red Red Bull to gather crucial data on the changed setup. This meant they had to make adjustments to the RB20 on the fly during the Qualifying session.

Managing past the traffic, the triple-world champion was about four-tenths behind his teammate Sergio Perez in Q1. Although he improved in Q2, he was still two-tenths adrift of the Mexican racer.

It was in the final leg of the Qualifying (Q3) that Verstappen was able to pull clear of his RBR colleague, seemingly grabbing the pole position with a lap time of 1:10.029. However, his celebrations were short-lived, as Norris was able to beat the Dutchman's time by a margin of 0.356 seconds.

As of now, Max Verstappen still leads the drivers' championship by 78 points over the British driver. He will likely be looking for a better result in the race on Sunday.