Logically, Qin Miao made such a major error, Verstappen should seize this opportunity.
Yet this rare mistake by Qin Miao was not taken advantage of by Verstappen, who is considered Qin Miao's biggest rival this season.
Because in Verstappen's last flying lap, the first two sectors were setting purple times, making pole position a possibility.
But during the final timed sector, the Red Bull team informed Verstappen that the car was low on fuel, and to avoid being disqualified for the entire qualifying session results by the FIA during car inspection, the team could only ask Verstappen to slow down and return to the pits.
Actually, Red Bull doesn't typically make such rookie mistakes; it was mainly due to the team only fueling Verstappen's car for five laps during the qualifying session.
Today's track temperature was lower than expected, causing the soft tires to only lose about 0.1 seconds per lap on their second flying lap.
