Verstappen aiming to avoid fresh Hamilton drama over Sprint weekend

Red Bull's Max Verstappen is hopeful of reversing the trend set during the first two Sprint Qualifying weekends in 2021. At Silverstone and Monza, the first two weekends to use the Sprint Qualifying format, Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton collided during the Grand Prix. With Brazil hosting the last Sprint Qualifying event this year, Verstappen is aiming to turn things around. "Heading to Brazil, it's difficult to say how competitive we are going to be," he said in his official race preview. "In 2019, we won the race, but it was a close battle all the way through and I expect something very similar again this year. "Let's see what the weather forecast is going to be because that can impact the performance quite a bit. It's also a Sprint race this weekend; I tend to do well in the Sprint race, but then get bad race results, so let's try and turn it around."

Momentum on Red Bull's side

With the recent slew of results going Red Bull's way, the team trail Mercedes by a solitary point in the Constructors' Championship. After claiming a 1-3 in Mexico, Verstappen said that the resurgence of Sergio Perez in the second car is helping to keep up the push into the final races. "It would mean a lot to the team to win; we of course work for both championships, so to get those points was amazing," Verstappen said. "Checo [Perez] has been on fire for the past few races. For now, we are taking it race-by-race and we just need to keep pushing. It felt really good to win in Mexico. "As a team, it almost couldn't have gone any better for us. It was great to have Checo up there with me and that's what we want, [so] we have to keep on pushing. "I really didn't expect qualifying to go how it did, but I always knew the car would be good in the race. We had a pace advantage and I was able to manage it to the end of the race."