Max Verstappen claimed being able to fight in the top six in the Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix would be a “good recovery” for Red Bull after a difficult opening day’s practice.
Red Bull’s Sergio Perez was 14th in the representative FP2 session at the Yas Marina Circuit, three places ahead of Verstappen.
Both Red Bull drivers were more than a second off of the chart-topping pace set by McLaren’s Lando Norris.
With such an alarming deficit to overcome, Verstappen has set a relatively low bar for Red Bull to achieve as the weekend progresses.
“I’m sure that we can do better,” Verstappen said on Friday.
“I’m not saying that we’ll be like McLaren level because they seem very quick so far this weekend.
“But at least if we can fight in that top six, I think that will be a good recovery because so far, it’s been it’s been quite tricky.”
Asked to explain the problems Red Bull has out on track, Verstappen replied “[there’s] just not a very good balance to be honest.
“Just no connected balance from entry to mid-corner and that makes it then of course difficult to well basically push and that’s something that we have to work on overnight.
Red Bull has ‘work to do’ over one lap, says Sergio Perez
Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate Perez had the benefit of running both Friday practice sessions in Abu Dhabi, with Isack Hadjar replacing the Dutchman for FP1.
After two hours of running, Perez is more positive regarding Red Bull’s race pace but is calling on the team to find more speed over one lap.
“Over one lap it’s quite tricky,” he said.
“I think we’ve got some work to do. The long run it’s a lot more promising but yeah, over one lap we need to find… we need to try and connect the car.
“We’ve been trying a lot of stuff out there but it’s just not coming together at the moment.”
Perez added that although “the car is not feeling tremendously bad at the moment,” the RB20 is “just slow over one lap so yeah, some work to do there.
“The car feels very different when we go with fuel so that’s the biggest standout at the moment.”
Asked how positive the long run pace was, Perez said “that was very promising but yeah, we’ve got some work to do to make sure that we are able to stay competitive.”
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