“SQ3 I think it just felt quite similar for me, I didn’t really improve a lot on the soft, but somehow we were first.

“Of course, I’ll happily take it, but yeah, didn’t really feel enjoyable out there to drive for whatever reason.

“Because in practice, it felt really, really nice. I was very comfortable and confident. Qualifying, not so much.”

The top 10 on the Sprint grid was covered by just over eight-tenths, so Verstappen was asked whether this alternate format, with less practice time, contributed to this?

He suggested that the “track layout” may also play a role, though returned to the feeling of surprise that rivals could not better his pole time.

“I mean, honestly, I don’t know,” said Verstappen in response to that theory, “it might be the track layout a little bit.

“I thought after practice, I was quite confident that we could really fight for pole. Then in qualifying, it didn’t really look like that for me.

“But somehow, we still ended up in first. I don’t know what happened to the other cars in the last lap.”

Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez will launch from P3 on the Sprint grid.