Verstappen: "I definitely think Mercedes picked up their pace a bit today"

Although Mercedes are traditionally very strong on the Bahrain circuit, during free practice it appeared that Max Verstappen would also pose a danger here this weekend. He was also able to keep up well during qualifying but eventually had to acknowledge that Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas were faster.

The Red Bull Racing driver was satisfied afterwards that he could start from the clean side of the track. "Just lacking a bit of rear grip in the lower speed corners for my liking. But overall I think it was a decent qualifying - let's see how we go tomorrow in the race because it's very hard on tyres. I hope we made the right compromise for that," Verstappen said.

Verstappen hopes to be able to fight Mercedes on Sunday, although he does think that Mercedes have found some speed from Friday to Saturday. This time his teammate will start next to him after Albon pushed himself up to P4 in the final run of Q3. "I definitely think Mercedes picked up their pace a bit today," he concluded.