Reigning Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen labelled his first day of practice at Formula 1’s Australian Grand Prix “messy” after a disrupted second session.
The Red Bull driver ended up second in both sessions, 0.018s adrift of McLaren’s Lando Norris in FP1 and 0.381s back from Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in FP2.
Verstappen attributed a slide-off across the kerbs at Turn 10 in first practice for causing damage to the floor of his RB20.
That led to the Dutchman missing the start of FP2 after repairs were carried out to replace the floor, but he laid praise on his mechanics for allowing minimum disruption.
“Today was a little bit messy because of what happened in FP1,” Verstappen said.
“We had some damage to the floor and chassis, which took a bit longer to fix meaning I had a bit of catch-up to do.
“The turnaround was very quick and the team did a great job but we ended up losing a bit of running time in FP2.
Leclerc’s pace on short runs in FP2, though hard to gauge in comparison to Red Bull without knowing how high engines were turned up, sets the stage for another close battle in qualifying.
Verstappen himself was coy after his delayed exploits in second practice and assessed the Scuderia as a team to keep an eye on.
“Normally I would have liked to have had a few more laps and I didn’t manage to do many long runs but I think that the laps we did were good,” he added.
“I think we know what we have to focus on and we have a few things to fine tune but we are looking forward to tomorrow.
“I think Ferrari is quick, but from our side I think there are also a few things that we can fine-tune.”
Sergio Perez meanwhile assessed his Friday as “tricky”, having slumped to eighth in FP2 and 0.813s behind Leclerc’s benchmark pace in the Ferrari.
Like team-mate Verstappen, Perez remains confident heading into Saturday but pointed toward the cars in scarlet red as being Red Bull’s biggest threat.
“I think we have some work to do overnight,” he said.
“Melbourne is also quite difficult when you move to the afternoon because the visibility is super poor with the low sun in your face.
“I think we are in a good place this season with the car though and we should be looking strong for tomorrow.
“We need to put it all together because it will be important to qualify high up.
“Degradation wise it looks quite high on the long runs; we need to look at that and it will be interesting to see what the best strategy will be this weekend.
“I think Ferrari look strong, this circuit seems to be better for them, they have been competitive in the long runs.
“They will be a challenge to beat this weekend, generally they are quite fast around here so it could be interesting to see how we match up.”
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