Power losses slowed best laps - Verstappen

Max Verstappen says that he suffered from numerous power delivery problems during the second practice session in Bahrain, which prevented him from being able to get the most out of his Honda-powered Red Bull.

The Dutchman ended the session sixth fastest, behind both Mercedes' and Ferrari, but also a tenth of a second slower than the Renault of Nico Hulkenberg.

“It’s OK but it can be better,” said Verstappen after practice. “We still didn’t find the right set-up.

“We knew that Ferrari was going to be quick and they are. We still have some work to do, especially on the softest tyres.”

Verstappen explained the cause of his lack of pace: “I had some issues in general in the fastest lap with the power, not having full power,” he said.

“I think on the medium tyre we actually look quite competitive. I should have been first on that tyre. Again I had a power release out of the last corner, I lost three-tenths with that.”

The team showed that they were much weaker on the soft tyre than the mediums, which left Verstappen concerned about his team's chances in qualifying on Saturday.

“In one way we look competitive but then for qualifying we still don’t look that competitive so we have some work to do,” he admitted.

His new teammate, Pierre Gasly, had a "messy" qualifying simulation and ended up in twelfth on the timesheets.

“I think FP1 was good, we had decent pace,” he said. “The beginning of FP2 was great as well.

“Just the soft run was quite a messy run. I didn’t manage to do it on the first run, [had] traffic in turn one. We tried something which didn’t work so it wasn’t the cleanest run.

“I think we have a good direction, we’re lacking a bit of pace with the soft tyre but we’re going to work tonight to find extra performance for tomorrow.”