Verstappen insists "nothing weird" at Red Bull despite Mercedes gap

Max Verstappen has insisted Red Bull remain competitive ahead of this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix despite finishing considerably adrift of Lewis Hamilton in practice.

Verstappen made an error at the newly reprofiled turn 10 on his qualifying simulation run in FP2 to skew data, although side-by-side comparisons show Hamilton was ahead up to the mistake which left the Dutch driver six-tenths of a second down.

After splitting the Silver Arrows in FP1, in which he finished 0.033s behind Valtteri Bottas, Verstappen remained upbeat ahead of qualifying.

On his mistake, Verstappen explained: "[I was] just a little bit wide in turn 10, got onto the kerb.

"Overall, we had quite a good day, the car seems quite competitive so I'm just looking forward to tomorrow to try to improve a bit further but we were not struggling today.

"We seemed quite competitive. How competitive we are tomorrow is going to be a question mark but from our side, we were quite happy.

"Of course, you always want to improve and do better but there was nothing weird going on today so just had to make sure tomorrow we are up there."

The section of track where Verstappen erred has been altered since last year, harking back to the old layout before a tightened hairpin was introduced in 2004.

Verstappen added: "I have been here before when they had already changed the corner but I think it is better over one lap time pushing.

"It is faster and more enjoyable but for overtaking I think it is worse."

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