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Red Bull ‘way worse’ than expected in Singapore - Verstappen
Max Verstappen says Red Bull’s pace was “way worse than we expected” after finishing eighth fastest in Friday's second practice at the Singapore Grand Prix.
The championship leader -- on a record-setting run of 10 consecutive race victories -- had suggested Red Bull could struggle more in Singapore than it has at recent venues, but it was still a surprise to see him nearly three quarters of a second off Carlos Sainz’s leading time in FP2. Verstappen was one place behind teammate Sergio Perez, and says there are questions that the team needs to answer overnight.
“A little bit worse than expected today,” Verstappen said. “Just struggling a lot with the balance of the car. We tried quite a few things in FP2 -- some worked, some didn’t -- never really got the car together, so there’s quite a few things to figure out for tonight, basically.
“Yeah it’s just a few things that we don’t understand, so that’s what we have to look into. I will try to of course improve but it’s quite a big gap … Ferrari is very fast. I just think we are way worse than we expected.”
Perez agreed with his teammate’s assessment, saying the Red Bull’s handling was challenging under braking during FP2.
“I think there are some interesting bits going on that we need to figure out overnight, hopefully,” Perez said. “We seem to be struggling quite a bit with the rear end of the car, especially in FP2. So plenty of things to look at and hopefully we can come up with he best possible setup, because we know that qualifying is very important.”
“We did expect the Ferrari to be very strong around here; we are just too far away. Hopefully tomorrow we are able to close the gap a bit more, but I do expect quite a challenge.”
With multiple occasions where drivers were complaining about traffic issues, Perez says he doesn’t expect a repeat once qualifying progresses.
“I think come Q3 it should all be very straightforward, but I don’t think we are relying anything on that. I think the main thing is to make sure that we are able to improve the balance that at the moment we are far off.”
Presented by:
Chris Medland
While studying Sports Journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, Chris managed to talk his way into working at the British Grand Prix in 2008 and was retained for three years before joining ESPN F1 as Assistant Editor. After three further years at ESPN, a spell as F1 Editor at Crash Media Group was followed by the major task of launching F1i.com’s English-language website and running it as Editor. Present at every race since the start of 2014, he has continued building his freelance portfolio, working with international titles. As well as writing for RACER, his broadcast work includes television appearances on F1 TV and as a presenter and reporter on North America's live radio coverage on SiriusXM.
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