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Verstappen confident he can close Rosberg gap

Max Verstappen is confident he can close the deficit to Nico Rosberg on Saturday after Mercedes set the pace on Friday at the Singapore Grand Prix.

While Red Bull was fastest in FP1 - with Verstappen leading team-mate Daniel Ricciardo - Rosberg hit back in FP2 to top the times by 0.275s from Kimi Raikkonen and 0.4s from Verstappen. Despite slipping back in the second session, the 18-year-old is confident he can erase the deficit on Saturday.

REPORT: Rosberg leads Raikkonen, reliability woes for Hamilton in FP2

“Yeah it was a positive day for us, maybe the second practice could have been a bit better but we are still more or less there," Verstappen said. "We know what to work on for tomorrow, so we will analyse a lot tonight to see what we can do for tomorrow.

“On this track four tenths is nothing, if you find a little bit of a better balance you get more confidence in the car and you get the lap time.

Asked if his own understanding of the car leads to such confidence, Verstappen replied: "It’s getting better and better all the time.

"It’s definitely a better start to the weekend than the other street circuits I’ve had so far!"

And Verstappen says Friday's running has done nothing to change his opinion that Singapore represents Red Bull's best chance of victory.

“Well [Mercedes] look pretty strong again. My second session wasn’t perfect but we were still up there. We can be happy. I think we can still improve a bit but I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

“I think it’s definitely our best chance [to win]. After Monaco this is definitely the best track for us.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.