Max Verstappen says Red Bull has “plenty of room for improvement” after Friday practice at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
The Dutchman finished a tenth behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in both sessions at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit but did so on harder tyres than the Monegasque after failing to get a clean lap on softs.
Verstappen’s long-run pace was also very strong, while their Italian rivals were stranded in the garage as both Leclerc and Carlos Sainz tagged the barrier during Practice 2.
“The sessions ran quite smoothly today, we completed our programme and tried out lots of different tyre sets,” Max told the Red Bull website.
Also Read:
- Leclerc: Ferrari to be ‘in the mix’ despite barrier clout in Saudi GP practice
- F1 drivers hope for ‘good race’ at Saudi GP after ‘difficult’ Friday
“It seems like Ferrari were quite competitive again, we still have a little bit of work to do to catch up with them and there’s plenty of room for improvement.”
As for the circuit, efforts had been made to address some of the safety concerns with a large number of blind corners, however…
“The track feels pretty much the same as last year, the barriers have moved slightly and in terms of visibility, it hasn’t made a noticeable impact,” Verstappen commented.
“Looking ahead to qualifying, we still need to look at some data, we’ll see how it all goes tomorrow.”
????? ????? ?✨ #GivesYouWings pic.twitter.com/9hc2Dg2Uul
— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) March 25, 2022
Teammate Sergio Perez also failed to manage a representative lap in FP2 but was only three-tenths off Leclerc’s pace in fourth.
“It was difficult to get the lap in I needed to see exactly how we will perform over one lap here because I had a lot of traffic out there,” the Mexican explained.
“I think it could be another straight shootout with Ferrari on Saturday but at the moment we are focusing on ourselves and hopefully tomorrow we are able to make the steps we’d like with the car.
“It will be important in qualifying to make sure we get the space for a clean lap because traffic can be a bit difficult around here so we need to make sure we are on it.”