Verstappen fears Red Bull ‘not quick enough’ as title-deciding weekend begins in Abu Dhabi

While Max Verstappen was left feeling “fairly happy” with the balance of his Red Bull after Friday practice in Abu Dhabi, he fears the package is “not quick enough” to challenge for honours as things stand.

Verstappen heads into this weekend’s season finale 12 points behind McLaren rival Lando Norris, who topped both of Friday’s sessions, meaning he needs a sizeable swing to make it five world titles on the bounce.

Asked to assess his day, which he ended 0.363s away from Norris, four-time champion Verstappen said: “Pretty okay. I was fairly happy with the car, we just need to be probably a little bit faster!

“I think still not quick enough, but I think overall we’ve been in – for us – a decent window around here.”

Verstappen and Red Bull have battled severe bouncing and ride issues with the RB21, and the Dutchman admitted that this area of the car was still far from ideal through FP1 and FP2 at the Yas Marina Circuit.

“That’s a constant fight that we have, but that’s nothing new,” he said, before pondering whether his engineers can get the car into a better window – and in turn find more pace – for Saturday’s running.

“It seems like it’s a decent gap that we need to close, but from our side we’ll just try to put the best car forward,” Verstappen commented. “Let’s see how much we can find overnight.”

Pressed on whether time needs to be found across both short and long runs, or if he thinks he will be in the fight over one lap, he replied: “No, no. Single lap and long run needs to be better.”