Verstappen will start fourth this afternoon behind Valtteri Bottas and the two Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel.
The Dutch youngster will be hoping for the rain in which he shone at Interlagos last year to return – as will Lewis Hamilton, who starts from the pit-lane after a Q1 crash on Saturday.
But even if Verstappen can get near Bottas at the front, he believes he will be a sitting duck on the long start-finish straight.
“I’ve looked at the GPS data and we definitely missed like half a second on the straights. So that’s the gap,” Verstappen said.
“Definitely we could’ve improved the balance a little bit.
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“But, afterwards looking at it it was still not too bad compared to the pole guy.
“We knew it was going to be more painful here on this track and I think it showed again. But that’s qualifying.
“Normally in the race we should be a bit closer.”
However, Verstappen was far more optimistic about taking on Raikkonen and Vettel.
“They are also a lot slower on the straights than Mercedes,” Verstappen added.
Verstappen looks set to finish sixth in the F1 World Drivers’ Championship, one place worse off than last year.
The 20-year-old has been plagued by technical problems with his Red Bull with seven DNFs in his first 14 races this year.
But he has won two of the last four Grands Prix to send a timely reminder to new champion Hamilton of where his competition will come from next year.
“At the moment he is the world champion, I’m still not in that position and I hope I can be next year,” Verstappen said.
“We need to wait and see how strong we can be as a team.”