Verstappen assesses ‘positive’ start in Malaysia as he explains why he didn’t run soft tyre in FP2

Max Verstappen was left satisfied with a “positive” first day on track at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, despite admitting to still having some “things to figure out” amid challenging conditions.

After narrowly missing out on a first victory of the season last weekend in Azerbaijan, Verstappen voiced his hope during Thursday’s media day of taking a win before the season is over – and while there is still plenty of action ahead, the Red Bull driver threw the gauntlet down by going fastest in first practice at Sepang.

Despite ending the second hour a little further down the timesheets in fourth – having not completed a run on the soft tyre during the session – Verstappen continued to look quick on the medium compound and appeared pleased with how his Friday had played out.

“I think we had a decent start, but it's tricky,” the Dutchman explained after FP2. “The track is really hot, a lot of degradation, so a lot of things to figure out but it's been positive.”

Pushed on whether he had been able to make progress with the learnings through the day, Verstappen responded: “I mean, progress is difficult. It was warmer again in FP2, different programmes, so hard to say progress, but there's still a lot of things to look at to try and understand better.”

The 29-year-old went on to confirm that he had not used the soft tyre during the second session, explaining of the decision: “I wanted to do a long run in case there was some rain coming in.”

Red Bull’s Technical Director Pierre Wache shed further light on the reason, admitting that the squad were keen to gather more data on the medium compound.

“I think we had a little bit of an issue with the car and the rain coming,” said Wache. “The forecast said the rain will come, then we didn't want to compromise the long run that I think is the most important thing for this weekend, in terms of degradation and to see how the tyre behaves, and especially the medium because we didn't have data on the medium.

“We favoured that, and after it was too late to run the soft.”

Wache also gave his take on how the day had generally worked out for the team, commenting: “We were not very optimistic, to be honest, starting the weekend. The main aspect for us was to evaluate the package we put in Baku, in different types of corner than low speed.

“It looks [to be] working better than the previous package. Relative performance is difficult to judge here, but we were surprisingly happy with where we were today.”

In terms of where the team place against their rivals, Wache suggested that it is “difficult to say” but added that “clearly Mercedes and McLaren also looked quite quick on the long run”.

And while some may be concerned by the prospect of rain over the course of the weekend, Wache is hopeful that this could prove interesting when it comes to strategy choices.

“There's a chance of rain every day, every session,” the Frenchman said. “We've never run in the rain properly. The first time we ran in the rain was in Barcelona [Shakedown].

“The car evolved a lot. We don't know how the car will behave around this condition – it's a surprise. I hope it will give us a little bit some gamble in terms of strategy and how to play with. Let's see where we are.”