Verstappen 'not worried', but predicts close qualifying

Anyone expecting Red Bull to turn up for the first race of 2024 in Bahrain and blow the competition away might be a little bewildered by the team's subdued start to the season on Thursday in Bahrain.

Max Verstappen was just sixth fastest at the end of the evening second practice, and his time was almost half a second slower that that set by Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton.

Sergio Perez fared no better and was tenth when the chequered flag came out, further quarter of a second behind his team mate.

But while it might not have been the sort of blistering pace that Red Bull fans were hoping for, Verstappen insisted he wasn't worried about their prospects heading into the weekend, although he agreed that qualifying would be close.

“I think it was not too bad," he told the media after the end of FP2. “Maybe some people around us already turned up the engine a bit in terms of top speed.

• Read also: Hamilton and Russell top Bahrain FP2 for Mercedes

“I don’t say everyone around us did that, but a few did, so I’m not too worried about the gap to P1, for example.

"But we just focus on ourselves," he insisted. "I think from today there were a few little balance issues from front to rear, but nothing big.

“It’s just about trying to find that sweet spot, and especially around here with the rough tarmac. When you get it into that sweet spot, you just pick up time and that’s what we’ll try to focus on a little bit more tomorrow.

“But I think it’s going to be very close in qualifying," he acknowledged. "I think’s going to be very nice. The long run, [pace] I was a bit happier about, but there’s a few little things we can do better.”

Perez was sounding equally confident about how the first day of the season had gone for the team, and said that the team were still concentrating on getting to know the RB20 after limited testing last week.

“With Bahrain it’s quite difficult P1 to P2," he said. "Just learning the track for qualifying and into the race weekend I think will be key for us. It was interesting.

“I think we got plenty. We explored the car quite a lot - we didn’t have the chance to do it in testing - so we are exploring it now with the mechanical balance here and there. So generally speaking it has been good.”

Perez said that the team had never believed the pre-season hype that the new car was massively ahead of their rivals including Ferrari and Mercedes.

"We had a lot of people talking that we were a second ahead and stuff like that, I was just laughing at them!" Perez said. “I knew that things are a lot closer and they are looking very competitive.

"It’s going to be a very tight battle [in qualifying] tomorrow," he added.

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