Verstappen frustrated with ‘massive gap’ to McLaren in Bahrain FP2
Red Bull Racing/Red Bull Content Pool
Max Verstappen expressed frustration over the “massive gap” to McLaren after the opening day of track action at the Bahrain Grand Prix. The Dutch driver suggested that Red Bull was “too slow basically every lap.”
Lando Norris set the pace during the first practice session, but it was Oscar Piastri who led Free Practice 2, clocking in a 1m 30.505s to go 0.154s clear of his teammate. Third-placed George Russell was half a second off Piastri’s time, while Verstappen, placed seventh on the timesheets, lagged eight-tenths behind.
Reflecting on his session, the reigning World Champion admitted that it had been “just difficult” amid tricky conditions where grip seemed to be scarce.
“[It] took like one lap, two laps to get into it, but still the gap was quite massive, so [I’m] not entirely happy,” Verstappen conceded. “[I was] just struggling a lot with grip, feeling in general. The balance wasn’t too bad but just, yeah, off, and quite a bit of work to do also in the long run.
“We’re just too slow basically every lap, and it was honestly not a lot of fun out there in the long run. A bit of drift practice at the end there as well!”
Max Verstappen missed FP1 after handing his car over to rookie Ayumu Iwasa. Commenting on this, Verstappen said, “It’s just how we planned the run, from FP1 with Ayumu in the car and then me in FP2, just to see how they would hold up.”
When asked about the gap to McLaren, the Dutch driver admitted, “Yeah, it’s big. We did a bit of a different approach to our Friday, so I think this gap is very big.”
On the other side of the garage, Yuki Tsunoda ranked P18 as he enters his second weekend as a Red Bull driver. Tsunoda, like Verstappen, was not overly happy with how his session unfolded.
“[It was] a bit of learning, I guess,” Tsunoda commented. “It’s a bit [of a] different set-up across the cars to kind of see [what] the performance looks like. There’s a little bit of that as well, but also the session was pretty messy overall.
“I [wasn’t] able to put it all together, also there was a lot of miscommunication between our side of the garage in the radio for example. I think that’s part of the learning process, because it’s [the] fifth session from when I jumped in. But yeah, it was not obviously the finest session.”
Looking towards Saturday’s Qualifying and Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix, Tsunoda said, “I hope it will be better. [It has] to be better than this.
“I’m sure we’re going to change a lot of things, and I mean for now it seems [like we’re] struggling, but at the same time I know a lot more will come from cleaner operations and everything. So I’m still feeling optimistic, but it will be hard for now to go through Q3.”
When asked whether he sees potential in the RB21 after analyzing data from both sides of the garage, Tsunoda implied he is still learning how to maximize the car's capabilities.
“Potential, it’s hard to tell, but like I said it’s a different set-up between us,” the 24-year-old noted. “I know each time I’m feeling its potential, but it’s just hard to extract it, and I could have done much better with the places where the lap time comes, which would make it much smoother operations-side.
“Warm-up, switches and everything was pretty messy overall today. I just have to avoid it – this situation – in future, but yeah, maybe me and Woody [my race engineer] have to go out tonight and build a relationship more!”
Up Next
