Verstappen secured a crucial pole position in ﷽the title-deciding race at the Yas Marina Circuit, nearly four-tentꩲhs clear of Lewis Hamilton.

At the start of Q3, Perez g🍎ave Verstappen a tow down ꦍto Turn 9, which was worth up to a tenth of a second.

While the slipstream wasn’t necessarily crucial in Verstappen securing pole, Wo🔯lff conceded that Merce𒆙des should consider doing it themselves in the future despite not thinking it was viable due to the effect of dirty air.

“We generally have the belief that the slipstreaming, what we gain on the straights you lose in the corners because you’re simply too close aꦅnd ꦑit’s very difficult to orchestrate,” Wolff said.

“I think the Red Bulls did it flawlessly today and credit to💧 them how they did it and that gave them an advantage but that’s not the reason why we’re behind. We simply had no pace, not enough pace and Verstappen late on I believe they were not slipstreaming and still fast.

“A lesson to learn is that so🅰mething we should consider in the future but today it’s basically 1-0 to them.”

Verstappen will be forced to start 𒈔the race on the less durable, soft tyre, while Hamilton🔥 will be on the mediums.

The Dutchman tried to get through on the yellow-marked tyre but flat-spotted them with a lock-uไp into Turn 1 on his♌ second lap in Q2.

Wol♛ff remains hopeful that Mercedes has made the right decision witꦦh its strategy.

“I don’t know,” Wolff replied when he asked if he thought Red Bull were ‘playing games’ in Q2 with its tyre choice. “I have no idea but at the end, I hope to believe that starting on the soft is a disadvantage, it may not be, he may disappear into the distance with the soft in the first few laps and then you hold track position but on tܫhe other thing, there could be quite some degradation.

“The truth is, I don’t know what the plan was and we don’t know what the outcome is going to be tomorrow. It’s tꦗwo different strategi๊es and then see what works.”

Merced🥃es was the team to beat across the various practice sessions w🧔ith Hamilton leading the way in FP2 and FP3.

Wolff pointed towards the change in track t💝emperature as one potential reason for Red Bull’s improved competitiveness and why Mercedes st🥂ruggled to get its tyres in the right window in qualifying.

“I think their car was very quick because you can see where Sergio is✃,” Wolff added. “He was competitive, he was right there, he’s P4 and although that was pretty compressed. I think they just tuned the car in a way that was very competitive in qualifying.

“It reminds me of the Jeddah pace🌊 which was unachievable for us and certainly they improved massively with the single lap pace.

“Maybe the ambient worked for them, it could a bit colder and this is why we were on the colder side of our tyre temperatures and that certainly didn’t help, we started to lock up and lose some time in [Tur💮n] 5 and I believe it was [Turns] 12, 13.”