Max Verstappen remained happy despite ending practice in the barrier at the Belgian Grand Prix on Friday.
The Dutchman pipped the two Mercedes drivers to P1 by less than a tenth of a second in the afternoon session at Spa-Francorchamps.
And evaluating his day as a whole, Verstappen was satisfied.
“It was good,” he said. “The whole day, we were quite happy. A few things to fine-tune from FP1 to FP2 and overall we were quite happy so definitely a very positive start.”
Max Verstappen’s FP2 ended abruptly ??#BelgianGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/ZaPojSNoYv
— Formula 1 (@F1) August 27, 2021
On the crash exiting Malmedy in Practice 2, he added: “I just lost the rear, a bit too much oversteer to correct and unfortunately hit the wall.”
Red Bull and Mercedes are achieving their near-identical lap times in very different ways with the RB16B making up enough ground in the more technical middle sector to counter the straight-line speed of the W12 in Sector 1 and Sector 3.
And Verstappen has seemingly ruled out trimming the downforce further to try and limit that deficit.
“I didn’t change anything on my car with the wings so I felt quite happy with what I had and a few things to take into consideration with the weather as well.”
Indeed, the rain was an ever-present threat around Spa on Friday and will be again on Saturday and Sunday.
“Difficult to say in the wet because so far we’ve not driven it yet but I think every day will be a bit like it was today. Definitely, it will be quite interesting,” Verstappen concluded.
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As for Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez, the Mexican, who was confirmed for 2022 on Friday, found himself almost a second off in both sessions in Belgium.
Even so: “The car is feeling good,” he said. “I think we have good potential for the weekend.
“It will be interesting to see what happens with the weather but I look forward to it. We should be able to have a good qualifying session.
“We have plenty of information and we just have to pick out the best bits and make sure we are able to have a strong quali.
“It is obviously in the back of our minds, the weather, but we just have to analyse and think about it.”
