Slow rivals and understeer issues frustrate Verstappen

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen was not in the best of moods in Abu Dhabi on Friday afternoon, after missing most of the practice time at Yas Marina.

Formula 1 rules meant that both he and team mate Sergio Perez was forced to sit out the whole of FP1 in favour of two young drivers, Jake Dennis and Isack Hadjar, with Verstappen watching on from pit wall.

When it came to the second session at twilight, there was a lengthy red flag for an accident involving Carlos Sainz was followed by another, shorter stoppage for a spin into the barrer for Haas' Nico Hulkenberg.

With the clock continuing to count down during the red flag periods, drivers had under half an hour to carry out their on-track runs. Verstappen and Perez completed just 17 laps apiece in the time available.

No wonder that cars were keen to get out on track the minute the light at the end of pit lane went green, with Verstappen seen barging his way past the two Mercedes cars he considered to be dawdling and taking too much time.

• Read also: Leclerc and Norris top red flag-hit FP2 in Abu Dhabi

"They have to move," Verstappen said after passing Lewis Hamilton and George Russell in the 'underpass' section. "They are all driving slow. I want to go out because we are limited on time, and they just keep on driving in the middle.

"When I tried to pass they tried to squeeze me in the wall," he complained. "So yeah, a bit silly."

Verstappen was more concerned about the lack of set=up time available to the team on Friday. Although he finished third fastest behind Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris, he was almost two tenths slower than the Ferrari driver.

“We had limited track time in FP2 so we weren't able to learn as much as we wanted to," he said. "From our side the balance is very off. A lot of understeer, a lot of jumping. Definitely a few things to figure out.

"I didn't expect it to be so far off," he added. "That's a bit of a question mark for us.

"I mean, we are still P3 so it's not too bad," he continued. "But balance-wise I think it can be a lot better, so we'll try and have a look at what happened there."

Perez was only a little over a tenth further behind Verstappen and was fifth fastest in the session in which times and positions mattered little. He reported similar concerned with his own set-up.

"We had to do some tweaks to the car towards the start of the session, I was struggling a bit with some front end initially.

"It wasn’t a very straightforward day, obviously I didn’t run in FP1 so you lose that and it means we have to be very careful on what route we take with set-up," he said. "Then dDue to the red flags we hardly got any running.

"When I did my lap, the tyres were on the hot side. So, yeah, not very representative at that point," he said. "We have some good potential in the car, we just have to do some tweaks here and there,.

"We should be in a good place for tomorrow," he pledged.

FP2 is the only practice session to be run in cooler twilight conditions, which is the time of day when qualifying and the race take place on Saturday and Sunday respectively as opposed to mid-afternoon for FP1 and FP2.

While neither Verstappen nor Perez have too much to worry about in the final race of 2023 with the two two positions in the drivers championship secured along with the constructors crown, it's clear that neither are taking it easy.

Verstappen is aiming to win his 19th race in a single season, extending what it already an all-time record figure. And Perez would rather like to claim his third win of the season to give his confidence a boost heading into 2024.

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