Max sixth in FP2: "Reasonably happy"

Published on 15 April 2016 by Stefan Meens

Max Verstappen finished sixth in the second free practice session of the Chinese Grand Prix. The Dutchman trailed the front running Ferraris of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen by 1.3 seconds. Both Mercedes, for once not topping the leader boards, followed the Ferraris in third and fourth.

“It went ok. The balance of the car was better than in FP1 so that’s positive”, said Max to Verstappen.nl. “The difference between the medium and the super-soft Pirellis is pretty big. To be able to instantly do a quick lap on the super-softs is challenging but it looked good.”

With rain forecast for qualifying, Max heads into an interesting Saturday: “I’m curious how we’ll do in a wet qualifying. It’s all very close but our long runs are pretty good so I’m reasonably happy.”

A couple of minutes into free practice two, Max heads out on the medium compounds for a five lap run. After this short stint, Max is sent on track with a set of the super-soft tyre to complete a qualifying simulation. The youngster sets his personal best time, a 1:38.268. It grants him P6. After that the focus switches to finding the right race set-up. It means that the lap times are not improving.

In comparison to FP1 – with its two red flags – the second Friday session passed by fairly uneventful. Apart from a couple of sideways moments, no incidents took place. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the Ferraris leading the Mercedes, a sight we have not seen that often in 2016. Behind the Italian and German outfit, Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo and STR’s Max claimed the best of the rest accolade. 

Chinese Grand Prix - Shanghai International Circuit - Friday 15 April

RESULTS FREE PRACTICE TWO
 P No Driver             Team          Time       Gap       Laps 
 1  7 Kimi Räikkönen     Ferrari       1:36.896             35 
 2  5 Sebastian Vettel   Ferrari       1:37.005   +0.109s   33 
 3  6 Nico Rosberg       Mercedes      1:37.133   +0.237s   33 
 4 44 Lewis Hamilton     Mercedes      1:37.329   +0.433s   33 
 5  3 Daniel Ricciardo   Red Bull      1:38.143   +1.247s   31 
 6 33 Max Verstappen     Toro Rosso    1:38.268   +1.372s   28 
 7 27 Nico Hulkenberg    Force India   1:38.527   +1.631s   31 
 8 55 Carlos Sainz       Toro Rosso    1:38.542   +1.646s   32 
 9 11 Sergio Perez       Force India   1:38.569   +1.673s   31 
10 77 Valtteri Bottas    Williams      1:38.723   +1.827s   34 
11 14 Fernando Alonso    McLaren       1:38.728   +1.832s   31 
12 22 Jenson Button      McLaren       1:38.828   +1.932s   28 
13 26 Daniil Kvyat       Red Bull      1:39.178   +2.282s   31 
14 19 Felipe Massa       Williams      1:39.214   +2.318s   34 
15 30 Jolyon Palmer      Renault       1:39.774   +2.878s   32 
16  8 Romain Grosjean    Haas          1:39.890   +2.994s   22 
17 94 Pascal Wehrlein    Manor         1:39.941   +3.045s   36 
18  9 Marcus Ericsson    Sauber        1:39.979   +3.083s   35 
19 88 Rio Haryanto       Manor         1:40.550   +3.654s   33 
20 12 Felipe Nasr        Sauber        1:41.066   +4.170s   32 
21 21 Esteban Gutierrez  Haas          1:42.954   +6.058s    4

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