Max Verstappen says his Red Bull was feeling “much better” compared to last week after topping Practice 2 for the Styrian Grand Prix.
Last weekend, the Dutchman was almost six-tenths off the pace of Mercedes in qualifying but, with lap times slower on Friday, finished 0.043s ahead of Valtteri Bottas at the top of the timesheets.
“We had a much better feeling than last Friday. We learned more about the car,” Verstappen said.
“We weren’t so happy last week, that’s why we tried to fix some things. So far, it’s much better and the direction we took seems to be the right one.
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“I don’t know if we have the right package to win the race, we’ll find out on Sunday,” he warned.
“Normally our race pace is more competitive but already over one lap we can’t complain and actually the 11 laps I did in last week’s race didn’t look too bad, so it can only get better.
“We’ll see tomorrow, but for sure the day has been very positive compared to last week.”
Verstappen’s fastest time could actually see him start on pole for the race, with thunderstorms threatening to washout Saturday’s action in Spielberg
That means if qualifying can’t happen, the grid order would be formed by the results of Friday afternoon.
“For now, I am the provisional pole,” Max noted. “But even if tomorrow the weather is too bad for qualifying I expect we will still have Sunday morning to do it, so I don’t expect to be on pole position with this lap.”
Teammate Alex Albon struggled to P7, spinning twice in the afternoon, but explained his day had been more about experimenting with the RB16.
Alex Albon loses his back end and goes off at Turn 8️⃣ into the gravel
We were very briefly under a yellow flag but he’s back on track#AustrianGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/OwpKQaPuWA
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 10, 2020
“We’ve been getting a bit creative and trying some different things compared to last week’s running here, some of the changes worked and some didn’t, so it’s a bit of a mixed day,” he said.
“The weather for tomorrow is obviously a bit of an unknown so let’s see what happens and if we’re even driving, as every time it’s rained here it’s been a monsoon.
“We’ll still treat tonight like any other Friday though and look over the data to see what we can learn ahead of tomorrow.”
