Max Verstappen is confident that he and Red Bull can make gains overnight when a fresher engine is installed in his RB13 at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Verstappen was comfortably the slowest of the leading six drivers over one-lap during the second practice session at the Yas Marina Circuit, as he wound up a second adrift of Lewis Hamilton.
Verstappen, though, remains sure that he can emerge in contention, albeit wary that Mercedes remains the benchmark, off the back of Hamilton’s display.
“We tried a few different things today to see what suited the conditions,” explained Verstappen.
“I was pretty happy in the first practice but not so much in the second one.
“We know what was changed which resulted in me not being able to turn as well as I would have liked so we should be able to fix that for tomorrow.
“We need to improve the set-up but we still don’t look too far away so this is a positive to take from the day’s work.
“The engine we had today was an old one, it is definitely not 100 per cent so we will change that tomorrow to improve the power.
“With a new engine and an improvement in the setup I am confident we will be in a good position.
“Mercedes are still looking like the team to beat, as they have been all year so we will try to get as close as we can.”
Daniel Ricciardo, meanwhile, finished third quickest, three-tenths of a second behind Hamilton.
“On low fuel we looked quite strong but I thought we would be a bit quicker with high fuel, so we still need to find a bit there,” said Ricciardo.
“Nothing in particular, just the general grip wasn’t quite there and I was sliding around so we’ll try and find a way to keep the tyres working a bit better in the night conditions.
“I think it’s still Friday numbers unfortunately, as we were ahead of one Ferrari and one Mercedes today.
“We expect them to be quick tomorrow, so if we have the same pace tomorrow as we had today I expect them to jump us. We still need to find a bit more speed.”
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