Max Verstappen does expect gains on Saturday after a tricky Practice at the Dutch Grand Prix.
The reigning world champion was only eighth fastest at Zandvoort on Friday afternoon, after losing out on most of the first session due to a gearbox problem.
But while it is clear Red Bull's rivals are more competitive, Verstappen wasn't too concerned about his situation.
"Just missing out on FP1 on the soft tyre," he said on what the biggest problem was on Friday.
Good to know the Orange Army always has your back 🧡 #DutchGP 🇳🇱 pic.twitter.com/aXy6JJy9Ep
— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) September 2, 2022
"I think on the hard tyre you couldn't really tell the balance because you have so little grip.
"Then you are a session behind so we went into FP2 and the balance wasn't great but in an hour's session you can't really change the car a lot so we just tried to deal with what we had.
"That wasn't great but we have the night to look over things, for sure we can do better tomorrow."
Verstappen and Red Bull definitely have work to do though, with almost seven-tenths between himself and the leading Ferraris.
"To be honest while driving, I was not really surprised when I saw the lap time difference," Max said on the deficit.
"There are a lot of things we can improve on. We will try to, of course, be more competitive."
Across the Red Bull garage, Sergio Perez also had a tough day finishing only 12th fastest and half a second behind Verstappen.
The Mexican was also fortunate to avoid the barrier in Practice 1 after running wide at Turn 9.
"I got a lot of traffic. I had one of the Ferraris on my fast lap, and I couldn't get a proper read on the soft tyres, unfortunately," the Mexican explained.
"On the long run, tyre degradation seems to be quite high so it will be interesting to see what we are able to do with the strategy, but we have to improve.
"We haven't been as happy as we were in Belgium. So, there are some things that we need to look at and figure out to be in the mix for qualifying."
Asked about the pace of Ferrari and also Mercedes at the front, Checo added: "They look strong. It will be interesting to see what we can do."
