Max Verstappen was feeling in a confident mood after the first two practice sessions for this weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix, despite not finishing fastest on either occasion.
He was just third quickest in the daytime session, but moved up to second place in the evening when he was just 0.169s slower than Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso.
But despite admitting to a few teething issues on Friday, Verstappen was overall happy with how the first day of the new season had gone for him and the team as a whole.
“It was a difficult start to the day," he told the media afterwards. "In FP1 we couldn’t get the balance right, which was a bit odd as we didn’t experience this in testing.
"From FP1 to FP2 we went in the right direction," he said. "In FP2 the short run laps weren’t too bad. The car felt a bit more connected and with the long runs. The pace was good. Overall the car isn’t too bad in the long runs.
"There’s still a bit more work to do. We know we have a competitive car, it’s just about putting it all the pieces together," he said. "I just need to find my rhythm again."
Among his rivals, Verstappen singled out Aston Martin's impressive opening day performance for praise. "The Aston Martins are looking competitive, you could see that already from testing."
Verstappen's team mate Sergio Perez was quicker than both Alonso and Verstappen in the daytime session, but slipped to third just two thousandths of a second behind Verstappen in the twilight run.
“It was quite tricky out there, the temperature from morning to afternoon changes quite a lot so the only representative session was this evening," he explained.
"We have some work to do over one lap and that should automatically put us in better shape for the long run. We explored the car a bit today and generally we have a good idea on how to set-up for tomorrow.
"I think everything is close at the top, certainly Aston Martin and Ferrari look strong, and I think it is going to go down to who puts the best lap together in qualifying - and who has the better race pace on Sunday.”
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