Max Verstappen acknowledged that Red Bull was under pressure from McLaren this weekend, suggesting that he expects another fierce battle with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.
Norris was quickest in both of Friday's practice sessions for this weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone, while Verstappen opened his account in fourth in the lunchtime practice and slipped to P7 in the second session.
However in neither was he able to show his true potential, as a result of timing, weather and at one point running off at Chapel.
Verstappen admitted that it hadn't been an ideal start for Red Bull, but there have been poor Fridays in the past that have been quickly turned around by the team in time for qualifying and the race.
"We need to analyse what we can do better for tomorrow," he told the media in the paddock afterwards. "That will show us which way to go tomorrow. It will probably rain, so we need to take that into account.
"We had a very good qualifying in Austria," he continued. "In general it was actually a positive weekend - apart from the race result," he added wryly, recalling the late clash with Norris.
"I still think McLaren are already flying here, like last year," he continued. "So I expect it to be very close."
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As for his brief off-track adventure during today's practice, Verstappen shrugged it off as inconsequential. I just overshot a bit," he said. "So I aborted my lap. On the soft tyre it didn’t go so well.
"We had a little slide in FP2 heading into Chapel so I ended up aborting the lap there," he explained. "The medium looked a bit better in FP2 so we still have some work to do, so we also tried some things with the car.
"Naturally I think the weather will impact things tomorrow with some rain to be expected and the whole grid will have to take that in to account with strategy," he added.
Verstappen's team mate Sergio Perez had a better time in second practice, finishing in third place as best of the rest behind the pacy papaya pair of McLarens.
“It was a solid session, considering I wasn’t in the car this morning for FP1," he commented, having been stood down for the first session in favour of young driver Isack Hadjar.
"When you miss a session, it immediately feels like a busier afternoon. Straight away you go into performance and high fuel and need to feed a lot back, but Isack had done a great job doing that for the team this morning.
"So the car is feeling good, although I think we need to find some balance, especially in the low and medium speed, the car feels really nice in the high speed.
"I think the car has good potential for this weekend," he concluded. "The conditions are going to be varied and we are going to have to be on it with the decisions we make."
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