“Today wasn’t the best of days” – Red Bull star Max Verstappen was off the pace against Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton during FP1 and FP2 of the Turkish GP.
Max Verstappen had a mixed Friday in Istanbul, finishing P2 in free practice 1 behind Lewis Hamilton and further down in P5 in the second session.
And with him trailing the Mercedes champion by just 2 points, is eager to improve over Saturday and make the most of the penalty Hamilton has taken for changing his Internal Combustion Engine (ICE).
“We tried a few things compared to FP1, but also FP1 wasn’t that great. So we’re still looking around a bit [for] what to do.
“Of course, it’s a bit different here. We don’t have a lot of data from here with these kind of cars, so it seems like we have a bit of an evening ahead to try and make it a bit better, because today wasn’t the best of days.
“It’s a super nice track now with normal conditions, so we’re just looking forward to the weekend, to driving.
“Hopefully of course it will improve, otherwise it’s not looking too good. But we’ll see what we can do overnight. We have to focus on ourselves and today wasn’t good, so we’ll work on that.”
Lining up for the rest of the weekend 🚀 #ChargeOn 🤘 pic.twitter.com/kYBjrBaFmU
— Red Bull Racing Honda (@redbullracing) October 8, 2021
Sergio Perez eager to see Red Bull close on Mercedes
Sergio Perez was faster than Verstappen in FP2, benefitting from a lot of grip he did not expect. But the said grip is inconsistent on the track, and with Mercedes looking stronger, is hoping Red Bull improve overnight and perform strongly in qualifying on Saturday.
“It did surprise us the amount of grip.
“It’s more like a standard track out there, but it’s still very challenging because it’s not consistent the grip, sometimes some of the entries to the corner you have less grip than on the exits, so it’s pretty difficult as a driver to adjust in that regard.
“Overall a pretty challenging Friday, Mercedes look strong, but overnight hopefully we are able to chip away a couple of tenths and be in the mix for tomorrow.”
