"We've seen a lot of crazy things": Max Verstappen looking to challenge for race win despite starting from P15

Max Verstappen is optimistic about the Saudi Arabian GP despite the disappointment he faced during the qualifying session.

After a suspected driveshaft failure during Q2, Verstappen was forced back into his garage. He was on a furious hot lap but all of a sudden there was an issue with the engine. Though engineers were seen working on the car, he soon got out, confirming that he was not going out on another lap. He will start the race from P15 on the grid, which is not quite what Red Bull would have expected.

Verstappen doesn't seem too worried about starting so far back and believes "anything is possible." However, he also mentioned the need to be "realistic." He said:

"Anything is possible at this track. We've seen a lot of crazy things, but also we have to stay a little bit realistic. It's going to be tough, but we have good pace, so for sure we'll move forward."

His teammate Sergio Perez qualified in pole position, closely followed by Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) and George Russell (Mercedes).

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Max Verstappen's aim is to 'score points' in Jeddah

Max Verstappen acknowledged the "tricky" situation he finds himself in at the Saudi Arabian GP but emphasized the importance of scoring points. He said:

"I think we so far had a really good weekend, every session was going really well and every time we went on track the car was working really well."

"So now it's a little bit more tricky to get to the front, but it's all about scoring points. It's a very long season, of course, I would have hoped to start a bit further up the road, but we cannot change that now."

Charles Leclerc will be starting just a little ahead of Max Verstappen on P12 due to a 10-place grid penalty (after changing his CU after the Bahrain GP). We could be in for an interesting battle between the pair.