Verstappen says Red Bull 'just too slow’ in Bahrain

Max Verstappen was left to rue what he labelled a “massive gap” to McLaren after the opening day of track action at the Bahrain Grand Prix, with the Dutchman suggesting that Red Bull were “too slow basically every lap”.

After Lando Norris set the pace during the first practice session, it was Oscar Piastri’s turn to lead the way in Free Practice 2, the Australian pumping in a 1m 30.505s to go 0.154s clear of his team mate.

FP2: Piastri leads Norris as McLaren dominate second practice in Bahrain

There was a significant margin to the rest of the field behind them, with third-placed George Russell half a second off Piastri’s time while Verstappen – in seventh place on the timesheets – was eight-tenths back.

Reflecting on his session after jumping out of the car, the reigning World Champion admitted that it had been “just difficult” amid tricky conditions in which grip seemed to be at a premium.

BAHRAIN, BAHRAIN - APRIL 11: Max Verstappen of the Netherlands driving the (1) Oracle Red Bull — Verstappen endured a "difficult" FP2 session in Bahrain

“[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!”

HIGHLIGHTS: Watch the action from Bahrain as Norris tops FP1 from Gasly

Having seemingly applied a lot of focus to running the soft tyre, Verstappen – who missed FP1 after handing his car over to rookie Ayumu Iwasa – said of this: “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.”

And when asked for his thoughts on that gap to McLaren, the 27-year-old 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 was further down the order in P18 as he enters into his second weekend as a Red Bull driver. Like Verstappen, the Japanese driver was not feeling overly happy with how his session went.

“[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.

BAHRAIN, BAHRAIN - APRIL 11: Yuki Tsunoda of Japan and Oracle Red Bull Racing prepares to drive in — Tsunoda believes that progressing to Q3 in Saturday's Qualifying could prove challenging

“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.”

In terms of his feelings about Saturday’s Qualifying – and Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix – Tsunoda explained: “I hope it will be better. [It has] to be better than this.

PALMER: Why Tsunoda’s first weekend with Red Bull was a lot more impressive than his final result suggested

“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 quizzed on whether he believes that there is potential in the RB21 after looking at the data from both sides of the garage, Tsunoda suggested that he is still learning how to extract the best from the car.

“Potential, it’s hard to tell, but like I said it’s a different set-up between us,” the 24-year-old said. “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!”