Despite ending his afternoon session with around twenty minutes to go after stopping on track with a mechanical issue, Max Verstappen felt it was a relatively positive day at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
The Dutchman ended fifth fastest overall despite his stoppage, with a gearbox issue suspected to be the cause, but ending just 0.453 seconds off the outright pace showed that Red Bull Racing are not as far away from the front of the field as they expected to be heading into the weekend.
Verstappen believes he will be fighting for fifth at best for the remainder of the weekend, but is looking to finish at least there to maximise his potential in Canada.
“It wasn’t the cleanest of days but in terms of performance I think we were OK,” said Verstappen. “Before the stoppage in P2 it was a positive session, we felt like we had good pace and weren’t far off the top four.
“This is nice to see at this track as it usually is not one of our favourites, we can be pleased with that I guess. The short runs were good and the updates seem to have given us something a little extra, with such long straights here it is always going to be difficult for us.
“We are not yet fast enough to beat the top two teams so we do our best to finish fifth and optimise what we have. We still need to investigate what the issue with the car was but I’m sure the boys will have it ready to go again tomorrow.”
