Both Red Bull drivers are confident the team had made progress thanks to the upgrade package introduced in Barcelona.

There were high expectations ahead of this weekend that the improvements would help Red Bull close the gap to the leading Mercedes and Ferrari, following a difficult start to the year.

And a six-tenths deficit to pacesetter Lewis Hamilton after practice on Friday gave both drivers reason for optimism.

“I think a bit more positive, I think we made a good step forward,” Verstappen said evaluating the performance of the RB13.

“We are a little closer to Ferrari and Mercedes, who brought a very good update so I think they are still ahead, but it was a positive day."

The Dutchman did admit it was hard to gauge a proper read, however, as he was one of several drivers caught out by tricky conditions in Catalonia.

“It was quite windy and unexpected wind like some gust coming on the corners, and that caught us out in Turn 9 so I think we should be careful but luckily not too much damage,” he said after running wide through the gravel.

“This track is always quite hard on the tyres, so the last sector is always quite tricky, and also with the wind, it was a little bit unexpected sometimes when you go into a corner it picks up or it goes down, that makes it even harder.

“Today you could see a lot of cars going off, including myself, it was just unexpected.”

Team-mate Daniel Ricciardo had been more reluctant about hyping the updates developed by Adrian Newey but was quite content in his assessment.

"There were times when it felt pretty good and times when we are still trying to find our way with it,” the Australian admitted.

“The medium at the start of FP2 was a struggle, but then we found a good chunk with the softs, so we are getting there.”

"For now it is as expected," he added, referring to the impact of the upgrades. We made some progress but we knew it still was not going to put us up with Mercedes.

“I feel we can still perfect what we've got and get a bit more tenths out of it. We want more but we are in line with what we predicted.”