Verstappen sees progress – but RB21 still wrestling with race pace

Max Verstappen believes Red Bull has improved the one-lap pace of its RB21 after Friday’s practice for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, but admits there's still a significant deficit to McLaren – particularly over longer runs. 

The reigning world champion finished third in FP2 behind the McLaren duo of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, trimming the gap to just over two-tenths. It marked a step forward from his difficult FP1, where he ended the session only ninth.

However, Verstappen was quick to downplay the improvement’s significance, especially when it came to race simulations.

“We tried some different things with the car, trying to find maybe a different direction with it, and I think we learned a lot from it,” Verstappen said.

“It’s still not where I want it to be; personally I don’t really look at the gaps and I think at the end of the day you have to just go from your own feeling and what you feel in the car over one lap, and it’s a bit better.

“But in the long runs, they were very tough for us.”

McLaren still the standout threat

Red Bull came into Jeddah hopeful that the smoother surface and lower tyre degradation would expose fewer of the RB21’s known weaknesses.

But Verstappen was left unimpressed by the car’s performance over longer stints, admitting more work is needed overnight to extract race-day potential.

"It's a different [feeling to Bahrain] because it's a different track and grip levels are different, but also the set-up is completely different, so it's very hard to compare,” he explained.

His main concern remains the competition. While teammate Yuki Tsunoda showed solid pace before crashing late in FP2, it was McLaren who once again laid down the benchmark, with Norris setting the session’s fastest time by a convincing margin.

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“I think one standout is of course again McLaren being very competitive, but from our side there’s still quite a bit of work to do and things to understand,” Verstappen admitted.

Red Bull now faces the challenge of finding the right balance – both literally and strategically – if it hopes to keep the pressure on McLaren in qualifying and Sunday’s Grand Prix.

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