Max Verstappen has concern Red Bull’s ongoing power deficit to Mercedes and Ferrari could be the deciding factor at this weekend’s Spanish GP.
The Milton Keynes outfit had both cars in second and third behind Lewis Hamilton in second practice while the Briton’s teammate Valtteri Bottas set the fastest time on Friday in the morning session.
As is usually the case in Barcelona, the technical final sector is where the RB14 is particularly strong but the Dutchman thinks the time lost in the first two sectors could be too much to make up.
“It’s hard to overtake here so we need to be competitive in qualifying. We know that in qualifying they will turn up their engines,” he said on Friday.
“Turn 3 is easy flat and Turn 9 is also flat so that becomes a straight and then we will lose even more in terms of engine speed.
“It’s a bit of a shame but we can improve our car for the final sector and we need to play to our strengths.”
This weekend Red Bull have brought a raft of upgrades, reportedly worth around half a second, and the 20-year-old was satisfied they were working though did concede “we always want more”.
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As for teammate Daniel Ricciardo, the Australian was left to recover from a rare off in the morning as he slid off the track at Turn 4 and gently hit the barrier.
“It is a bad corner to have a tailwind so it makes it tricky. It caught me out this morning,” he explained.
“There were a few of us making errors for sure. Unfortunately, mine was costly enough to miss the last hour of that session.”
The race winner in China two races ago also questioned Pirelli’s decision to bring the Supersoft tyre to the Spanish race, despite Red Bull looking one of the stronger teams on that compound.