Max Verstappen said that between himself and Red Bull Racing team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, they experimented with set-up at Spa-Francorchamps on Friday, but the Dutchman felt the results were ‘nothing special’.
Faced with a sea or orange as Dutch fans invaded the Belgian circuit – Spa is the closest venue to his homeland – Verstappen finished fourth in both free practice sessions on Friday, finishing ahead of his team-mate in both, but he feels Red Bull are going to be clearly the third best team this weekend, especially if it stays dry.
Verstappen says Spa is tricky to get the set-up right, with the first and third sections significantly different to the middle sector, and he knows there may need to be some compromises made on the car.
“An OK first day back here at Spa but nothing special,” said Verstappen. “Between Daniel and myself we tried a few set-ups to improve speed on the straights, it’s somewhere we need to improve in order to fight so we are trying to find a good compromise.
“At the moment we don’t seem too far off the two top teams but it is only Friday, I’m sure it will be a different gap tomorrow. It’s hard here to find the set-up to be competitive on the straights but also balanced in the corners, we will make some steps in the right direction tonight, hopefully.
“In the dry I think we will be the solid third team like we have seen so far this season. Although it’s raining at the moment I don’t think there is much more forecast. This is a shame as it would definitely help us; fingers crossed we get a bit more for the race.
“There is already a lot of orange to be seen in the crowd and it’s only Friday, I’m expecting to see a lot more tomorrow and Sunday which is really great and nice to see so many fans supporting me, it always helps come race day.”
