Verstappen acknowledges that Red Bull was just ‘not fast enough’ as the home hero finished Friday practice at Zandvoort looking for soluti

Max Verstappen offered a frank assessment of his start to the Dutch Grand Prix weekend, describing Red Bull as “a bit too slow” compared to their rivals after finishing behind both Mercedes and McLaren cars in Friday practice.

Verstappen, hoping to secure his fourth consecutive victory at his home race, followed George Russell,, Lewis Hamilton, and Lando Norris in the dry afternoon FP2 session at Zandvoort.

When Verstappen was questioned about his day, he mentioned that he didn’t have much track time during FP1. In FP2, you could probably have a better sense of your location.

We are a little slow in both the short and long term, so we have some work to do.
Currently, there is no definitive solution on how to enhance that in particular, but we will investigate further. Simply too slow, that’s all it is.

Verstappen mentioned that Red Bull’s current position after the summer break, which has been four races since their last win at the Spanish Grand Prix in June, is expected.

“He remarked that we have been in the same position in the past few races, so it is not unexpected.” “We will attempt to increase our performance slightly for Sunday.”

Across from the Red Bull garage, Sergio Perez finished in 12th place, trailing Verstappen by six-tenths of a second, aiming to recover from a challenging series of incidents.

Perez mentioned that they have been experimenting with various things in order to improve their car set-up and recent updates, while working towards finding a better direction, alongside Red Bull.

I believe our day appears slightly more organized than it actually is. I made an error in Turn 12, veered off track, resulting in a loss of a few tenths.

In general, I believe we need to improve our long-run pace in order to keep up with the competitors ahead. I believe we’ve driven both cars in various ways, so we have a hectic day coming up.

Perez was adjusting to working with a new Race Engineer, Richard Wood, who took over for his usual radio partner Hugh Bird while he was on paternity leave.