Red Bull managed to list positive points and come out encouraged from the first practice sessions of the Belgian GP of Formula 1. On this Friday (17), both Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar showed satisfaction with the RB22.
Read more F1: Haas boss mentions Câmara, but says Ferrari «does not pressure to hire him»
In the first free practice, the Dutchman was the one who led the session even beating Kimi Antonellli. Meanwhile, in FP2, the four-time world champion finished about 0.5s behind the Italian from Mercedes in third place, but still managed to be happy with what he saw in Spa-Francorchamps.
“The practice sessions were quite decent for us today. The balance was good immediately and we were mainly working on fine-tuning the car, which we hope has released a bit more pace. In FP2 maybe we were seeing the real difference a bit more clearly, but we can’t be disappointed with our performance and we are focusing on ourselves,” he said.
Read more F1: Gasly explains severe crash that caused red flag in Belgium
“It’s quite a challenging track with energy management, and during the session we were also looking at downshifts, as it took some time to get them working properly. From a balance point of view, the car also felt good and we hope we can find more pace before qualifying. There are some areas we still need to improve, but overall it was a good day,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Frenchman also showed good performance, managed to run for a long time in first place and in the end, finished the day in fifth. “The car’s pace was good from my first lap on track today. I feel we have taken a step forward in terms of performance since Silverstone, which is positive. I felt very good and, going into FP2, we tried to maintain that pace. In the second session, the gap to the leaders increased, so we will analyze where we can recover ground. Overall, it was a solid day and it’s good to be in the fight,” he concluded.
Read more Ex-F1 is surprised by FP2, but believes in a change in the scene for qualifying in Spa
