Perez hears rumours about Red Bull: "Made me smile"

The first two free practice sessions of the season did not go smoothly for Red Bull Racing. Max Verstappen, who complained about too much air coming through his visor, finished sixth in both sessions. Sergio Perez came no further than 12th on the timesheet in the first free practice and finished 10th in FP2. The Mexican reacts after the first real day of practice in Bahrain.

Perez is fairly positive after the first two practice sessions in Bahrain. "I think these sessions were key and very interesting, we have a plenty to explore on the car, that we didn’t have the chance to during testing, so we are exploring it now with the mechanical balance here and there. The good thing is that whatever we do on performance runs seems to help the long runs. We just have one aim, which is to make a more balanced car and that will make things better for the race and qualifying."

Rumours made Perez smile

Following testing, there were some suggestions that Red Bull were as much as one second faster than the rest of the feild. After Friday practice, things seem to be much closer. In fact, neither Verstappen or Perez really troubled the top. Perez added a reaction to this suggestion.

"Today was as expected. We heard a lot of people saying that we were a second ahead after testing, which made me smile because I knew things would be a lot closer. It is looking very competitive across the grid, and it is going to be tight on Friday night in quali," explained the 34-year-old driver from Guadalajara.

Perez's teammate, Verstappen, was also in pretty good spirits after the somewhat disappointing final results. The Dutchman feels that a number of teams have screwed up the engine during the practice sessions. Qualifying, this time run on Friday, will be a lot closer together, according to the Red Bull drivers, than first expected.