Verstappen about Red Bull: "That car is just very sensitive"

Mercedes dominated again during the free practice sessions on Friday. Bottas was in FP1 and in FP2 in Russia. Max Verstappen followed at an appropriate distance and sees that there is a lot of work to be done before qualifying and the race.

In the first free practice, Verstappen set the third fastest time, behind Bottas and Daniel Ricciardo of Renault. But the really big differences only became clear in the second practice session. The Red Bull driver had trouble catching up and finished in seventh place, behind both Mercedes, Ricciardo, both McLaren's and Sergio Perez.

In the Formula 1 café of Ziggo Sport, Verstappen tried to analyse what happened during the free practice sessions. 

"That first practice session still looked reasonable if you don't include Mercedes of course. They are very fast here. For the second practice session we tried something with the downforce because we were a bit slow on the straight. That's why we didn't really find a balance in the short run, but I was in a fast lap when I spun. That car is just very sensitive on low downforce."

"Distorted image"

He doesn't think he's come into his own. "In the end we could have been around Daniel's time. So it's a little bit distorted. It still wasn't a top Friday, but that's what we expected. It's just not our circuit with those long straights and little grip. I think we can do better than we showed today, but that's because we just tried a lot."

Especially in the Renault team, the young Dutchman sees great danger. "It looks like Renault is doing well and I expect it to hang for third place as well."