Max Verstappen expects a “very tight” fight for pole at the Styrian Grand Prix despite topping both practice sessions on Friday.
Fresh from his victory at Circuit Paul Ricard, the Red Bull driver is looking to add to his pair of successes in 2018 and 2019 at his team’s home circuit in Austria.
But while it appears he made the perfect start based on the timing screens, Verstappen knows the reality might be slightly different.
“Yeah well I mean second practice Lewis was faster but his lap time got deleted so looks a bit different from what I think is shown at the moment,” he said.
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“Overall I think it has been quite good for us. A few things to look into but overall I’m quite happy with where the car is.
“If that’s possible already in FP2 I’m sure towards qualifying, well we have to see and wait what the weather will do, but overall yeah I think it will be again very tight.”
As for teammate Sergio Perez, the Mexican had a subdued day, only managing P9 in the afternoon, 0.67s slower than his teammate…
“Yeah I am not concerned at all,” Checo stated. “Obviously here finding a few tenths makes a huge difference so I think we are in the mix. Hopefully, tomorrow, come qualifying, we are able to put a great lap together in Q3.
“Track conditions were good. I think the track was improving as we went through. It will be interesting to see what happens overnight but most importantly I think from our side we just have to find a bit of fine-tuning.”
Indeed, while Perez has shown better speed in recent races, the process of extracting it is still a little longer than he’d like.
“We seem to have the same issues in practice where I am not so comfortable with the car. I went in one direction and it’s probably not the right one,” he explained.
“I am not concerned at all. I do think we do have good pace, the long-run pace seemed to be promising so if we are able to find a couple of tenths overnight then we are in the fight for tomorrow which is important.”