Max Verstappen was mixing it with the stars ahead of qualifying on Saturday at the Miami Grand Prix, with one celebrity in particularly having caught the attention of the Dutchman’s fans.
The reigning World Champion was seen having a photo with billionaire Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter owner Elon Musk, as well as the South African’s son.
The photo of the trio from the Red Bull garage was quickly posted onto a Verstappen fanpage on Instagram, with it having already racked up over 35,000 likes.
“Elon and little X meet Max,” wrote the fanpage on Instagram, along with a photo of the trio.
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Meeting Musk ahead of qualifying seemingly didn’t give the 25-year-old much luck, with Verstappen having endured a frustrating qualifying at the Miami International Autodrome.
The two-time World Champion has been the fastest driver by far all weekend, with most having expected the Dutchman to claim yet another comfortable pole position.
Following Q1 and Q2, it did look incredibly likely that Verstappen was going to claim his third pole position of the 2023 F1 season; however, a costly error at the start of Q3 turned out to have a damaging effect on his session.
On his first Q3 push lap, the Red Bull star was forced to bail out of his lap at Turn 8, due to having run far too deep into the corner.
After bailing out of his lap, Verstappen found himself ninth in Q3 with just two minutes remaining, putting all the pressure on his final lap.
In the end, Verstappen was unable to even complete his final lap after Charles Leclerc crashed again at Turn 8 with just over 1:30 on the clock, resulting in a red flag and the end of qualifying.
To make matters worse for the championship leader, Sergio Perez’s banker lap was good enough for pole position, meaning Verstappen could very well lose the lead of the standings on Sunday.
Whilst fighting from ninth will be a challenge, Verstappen was still confident that he can get to the front “quite quickly”, although, he was concerned about a potential DRS train.
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“It will be a little bit tougher but with the pace of the car we have, we should be able to move forward quite quickly,” Verstappen told media, including RacingNews365.com.
“I hope it is not going to be a DRS train because then we are in trouble.
“It is going to be a little tricky [to overtake] but most will be done into the last corner [Turn 17], or at least that you are very close and maybe you get a run into Turn 1, but we will see.”
Verstappen ended up winning the race, with Perez finishing in P2.