It was a reasonably good day for Red Bull racing driver Max Verstappen, who finished both ninety minute free practice sessions at the Circuit de Catalunya in fifth place overall, the second session seeing the young Dutchman a mere six tenths off the leading pace.
In control of a heavily upgraded RB13, Max was thrilled that they had managed to significantly close the gap to the leading four cars. While the pace on the upgraded car was quite good, there was a lot of wind about which caused a few general issues, including a small off track excursion.
“I think it looks like we have closed the gap a little bit to Ferrari so this is a big positive, but it looks like Mercedes have brought a good update package as well so they are still quite far ahead. We are still the third team but the changes are taking us in the right direction and we have found an increase in grip. We still have a lot of work to do to improve the pace of the car and also the performance of the engine so we will keep pushing,” he said.
"There was a lot of unexpected wind out there which caused a few issues. I was at full lock in turn 9 and suddenly a gust caught the rear and forced me off the track and through the gravel, luckily there was not much damage. I saw a few guys get caught out by the wind. This circuit is always quite hard on the tires so the last sector is usually quite tricky but the wind definitely did not help."
