Max Verstappen believes he'll have a promising Red Bull package at his disposal for next week's opening round of the 2019 F1 season.
This year's campaign starts earlier in March than usual, but despite the slightly shortened winter break Verstappen is raring to go.
"I always look forward to going to Australia and I’m ready to start racing again. Even though the season starts earlier this year, it still felt like a long winter," he said in Red Bull's Australian Grand Prix preview
"Melbourne is an interesting weekend as it’s the first race of the season and nobody really knows where they stand, especially with the regulation changes and us with our new power unit.
Albert Park is an interesting track, it’s actually quite bumpy and has a lot of fast corners, so it’s fun when you have a well-balanced car there.
It’s not the easiest circuit to overtake on as the straights aren’t quite long enough which makes it hard to set-up a pass, but it’s always possible."
Verstappen took stock of the team's performance in pre-season testing in Barcelona, and while there were a few setbacks, the Dutchman feels he'll be in the running at the outset.
"If we look at our longer runs from testing, our performance seems pretty promising and we hope to be competitive from the beginning of the year," said the 21-year-old charger.
On his way to Oz, Verstappen enjoyed a stop-over in Tokyo to burn some rubber in a Red Bull show run.
Really great to see so many fantastic fans out in Tokyo 🙌 Love being in Japan! 🇯🇵 #givesyouwings pic.twitter.com/xtpormNpoY
— Max Verstappen (@Max33Verstappen) March 9, 2019
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