Verstappen sees areas for improvement: 'In fast laps we are not great'

Qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix was a nail-biter. The narrow margin on Friday suggested that the race could be quite exciting. The reality was different: Verstappen disappeared over the horizon and the best Ferrari driver finished as far as 25 seconds behind.

Red Bull's competitors are obviously curious to know how to explain that huge power difference. Was it the cooler conditions? Or was the concept of the RB20 the reason, and this car too is especially strong in races? Verstappen addressed those questions after the race.

"I do think that we are just not that great on on one lap performance for whatever reason with the car," the Dutchman said. "Luckily it's very good in the race for most tracks. Naturally of course you focus a little bit more on the race. It just seems like other teams can maybe extract a little bit more over one lap than us for whatever reason so that's what we'll look at for the coming races. The circumstances today with the wind helped us out a bit more compared to the last two days."

Verstappen not thinking of a new record hunt

Ahead of the season, everyone was curious to see how good this RB20 really is. The answer - at least judging by the opening race - seems pretty clear. Verstappen even managed to lap half the grid, and his margin to number two Sergio Perez was more than 20 seconds. With a car like that and the form Verstappen is (still) in, the world champion seems to be on the hunt for another bunch of records.

"I don't really think about that," countered Verstappen. "I go race by race because there's so many different scenarios and this is a very particular track as well. Probably one of our strongest anyway. I don't want to think about these kind of things yet. I just want to now focus on what to improve from this race onwards. Look at Jeddah and how we prepare there but I’m not looking ahead too much."