Verstappen, Austria, Red Bull — Photo: © LAT Images

Austrian Grand Prix

Verstappen concerned by Mercedes qualifying pace after imperfect FP2

Verstappen finished FP2 in third behind both Mercedes drivers

Ewan Gale

Friday 2 July 2021 18:00

Max Verstappen has conceded Red Bull will need to find qualifying pace overnight after Mercedes clawed itself back into the reckoning at the Red Bull Ring.

Lewis Hamilton led a Mercedes one-two in second practice for the Austrian Grand Prix with his one minute 04.523secs effort two-tenths faster than Verstappen's fastest time.

After taking a comfortable victory at last weekend's Styrian Grand Prix, also held at the Red Bull Ring, Verstappen revealed his concern over Mercedes' soft tyre pace.

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“From our side, we didn’t have a perfect run in FP2 but nevertheless I felt good in the car and there are no real problems," said Verstappen.

"Mercedes looked quite quick on the soft so we just have to make sure we have a little more pace on that compound because we looked stronger on the medium and in the long runs, which at the end of the day is the most important for the race.

"We also tested the new Pirelli prototype tyre which seemed to be fine. It did get quite greasy out there but luckily it was good enough to keep on driving so we had a good read on the long-run pace.

"I think it will be tight again this weekend as it looks like Mercedes improved a bit but we will see tomorrow in qualifying and the most important thing is to make sure we look after the softer compounds in the race.”

Perez "not fully comfortable" on soft tyres

Sergio Perez endured a difficult afternoon in Austria, finishing only 11th after finishing nine-tenths adrift of Lewis Hamilton's time.

Despite being buoyed by his long run pace, Perez knows he must pull together his form over one lap to challenge in qualifying.

“The long runs were definitely more promising today but there’s still a lot of work to do," the Mexican added.

"Both sessions were quite tough and I’m not feeling fully comfortable with the car on the softer compound yet.

"We need to analyse the data tonight to try and get the pace back to where we would expect it to be, ready for qualifying tomorrow.

"We seemed to be quite far away from the balance with the low fuel but we corrected that quite quickly, we were also seeing less degradation on these tyres too which is good."