Verstappen seeking even more pace for Baku weekend

Max Verstappen believes there is more time to squeeze out of his RB16B this weekend, despite finishing as the runner-up in second practice in Azerbaijan just a tenth of second behind his Red Bull team mate Sergio Perez.

Verstappen had earlier been fastest of all in FP1, and it was his view that the team's adjustments to the car after lunch had cost him time rather than improved matters.

"Performance wise I think we had a great start to the weekend here in Baku," he said. "It was quite windy out there today which wasn’t easy for any of us, but it definitely makes things more interesting.

Read also: Perez and Verstappen on top in second practice – Mercedes falls back

"In FP1 the car felt pretty decent, I was quite comfortable and then for FP2 we made a few changes to see if it was better but I don’t think it was,

"We made some changes in second practice to see if we could go even faster, but that made us go a little bit slower," he explained to Sky Sports Italia after the end of the day's track activity.

In fact Verstappen's best post-lunch time of 1:42.216s was almost a second quicker than his morning benchmark, despite hotter temperatures, gusting winds, a congested track and a red flag stoppage in FP2.

"We had a very good start today to this weekend, the car is going really well and gives me a good feeling so far," Verstappen continued. "In the evening we will have to see what exactly we are going to change.

"We’ll look into that overnight and see what direction we will go for qualifying," he added. "So far I think we look pretty strong as a team, and I’m very happy with that so let’s see what we can do tomorrow [in qualifying].”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.