Verstappen doubtful of Red Bull’s qualifying pace at Spa

Max Verstappen doubts Red Bull can take the fight to Formula 1 rivals Mercedes and Ferrari at the front of the pack during qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix on Saturday, but is hopeful of an improved showing over the long runs in the race.

Verstappen led Red Bull’s charge by finishing fourth in second practice at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps on Friday, albeit a distant six-tenths of a second back from pace-setter Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari.

Power circuits similar to Spa have tended not to favour Red Bull through the 2018 season given Mercedes and Ferrari’s engine advantage, leaving Verstappen sceptical of the team’s chances over one lap in qualifying tomorrow.

Verstappen said he thought Red Bull would be “in qualifying, realistically fifth and sixth” behind the two Mercedes and two Ferraris.

“But in the race, you never know what is going to happen,” the Dutchman added.

“The long run pace was not too bad, so I’m actually quite happy with that. Just need to find a bit more grip.
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The last sector, we seemed pretty quick. But with the rear wing we have on the car, you expect to be like that. It’s just not easy to be in the second sector where you lose a lot of rear downforce and sliding around a bit more. We’re still trying to optimise that.”

Verstappen was left flying the flag solo for Red Bull for much of the opening practice session on Friday after teammate Daniel Ricciardo suffered an engine issue, limiting him to only four laps in FP1.

While Ricciardo had no issues through FP2 later in the day, the Australian struggled to sixth place in the final stands, a further two-tenths of a second back from Verstappen, and he echoed his teammate’s thoughts when speaking after the session.

“We weren’t quick enough today. Short and long runs, we still need to find some pace,” Ricciardo said.

“We need to try and figure out how to do that. We did make changes through this afternoon session. I feel we improved one thing but created another problem so we didn’t find the optimum set-up through the changes we made.

“That’s Friday, we’ll try and go better tomorrow.”