Max P2 after day one in Bahrain: 'A positive Friday'

Published on 27 November 2020 by Mike Motilall

Max Verstappen finished the second free practice in the run up to the Bahrain Grand Prix second fastest. Lewis Hamilton was the quickest once again in his Mercedes. On the Bahrain International Circuit Valtteri Bottas came home in third in his Mercedes. Sergio Perez’ Racing Point and Renault running Daniel Ricciardo rounded out the top five. Max’ team mate at Aston Martin Red Bull Racing, Alexander Albon, had a severe crash and ended up tenth fastest.

“The first practice I really didn’t do a lot of running”, says Max after the second free practice in Bahrain. “We had some testing on the car and they didn’t seem to do what we wanted. So I lost quite a bit of laps there. But the second practice was alright I think.”

Max continues: “There are still quite a few things we need to understand but it has been a positive Friday in general. You can clearly see that Mercedes is very quick again but there is also no surprise about that. From our side we just need to focus on getting an even better balance in the car and then just focus on the race because the tyres here are quite tricky. There is a lot of degradation lap after lap.”

Looking at the rest of the weekend, Max says: “You don’t want to fully focus on qualifying because the race is quite aggressive on tyres. It’s never perfect to be honest. You can always find things that you think can be better.”

“It’s difficult to know what compound we were running on today for 2021. We were a bit all over the place in terms of grip and balance to be honest. We will look into that and we’ll speak to Pirelli about it”, Max concludes.

At the start of the second free practice, it’s 26 degrees Centigrade and still quite comfortably warm in Bahrain. It has become dark and the artificial lights have been turned on by now. At the start of the session it’s immediately very busy and most drivers have opted to run on Pirellis 2021 prototype tyres. Pirelli have requested from the teams that every driver run at least a minimum of six laps on these tyres.

Max is second fastest in his first timed lap and ends up behind of Carlos Sainz. Max is also running on the test tyres. After about fifteen minutes the first few drivers start trickling back into the pits to make the change to regular racing tyres. Max comes in as well. The Dutchman is still second behind of Sainz.

After some twenty minutes, Max heads back out but this time round on a set of the medium compound tyres. In his first flying lap on the new set he gets three purple sector times with a lap time which is 1.6 seconds faster than everyone else so far. This means P1 for Max who not much later heads back home to the pits. After that the competition closes in but fail miserably in trying to better the Dutchman’s lightning time.

More than half an hour has gone by when the drivers start their qualifying simulation on the soft compound tyres. Both Ferraris are stuck in seventh and tenth while Daniel Ricciardo claims third in his Renault. Sebastian Vettel reports on the radio to his team that he is suffering from vibrations: “Towards the end of the straights I am having a lot of vibration”, he informs his engineer.

Halfway the session, Bottas and Max also report for duty on a set of the softs on track. In their first flying lap, both are unable to better the time Max did on the mediums previously. Another attempt goes sour because of the severe crash Albon suffers. He subsequently triggers a red flag. The British Thai goes off track quite rapidly and hits the tyre wall extremely hard. Luckily he is able to walk away unscathed as he climbs out of his RB16 and gets into the medical car.

Time ticks away and with just 32 minutes left on the clock the session is cleared again. Not for long though. As the drivers head out on track barely a few seconds later a stray dog triggers a second red flag.

With still 26 minutes left on the clock the track is cleared again and the majority of the drivers head back out once more. Max ventures out on a scrubbed set of soft tyres. We see the time getting bettered left, right and center but an improvement on Max’ time he did on the mediums is not happening, for now.

In the closing stages we see many drivers busy with a race simulation. At Red Bull also. Mercedes briefly sends out Hamilton on a new set of the softs. With this the seven-time world champion betters Max’ time and snatches P1 from the Dutchman. There aren’t any major changes after that and the first day in Bahrain comes to an end.

Contest GP Bahrain: win a by Max signed Red Bull Racing driver cap!

Results second free practice Bahrain: