Verstappen happy after good Friday but admits Sunday "Will be quite tough"

In Singapore, Red Bull Racing had an off-weekend, after which some voices suggested that the team would have been hit by the FIA's new technical directive. That none of that was true, Max Verstappen proved though with his dominant pace on Friday in Japan.

The first two free practice sessions on Friday painted a stark contrast to the Grand Prix weekend in Singapore. Verstappen is very happy with how the RB19 is complementing the Suzuka Circuit: "It felt really good today. From lap one the car was enjoyable to drive again and it seems like we had a strong day on short runs and long runs" he told F1TV.

However, the Red Bull driver does place a caveat: "There’s a lot of degradation on this track so it will be quite tough I think on tyres in the race but so far, I think we’ve had a good start to the weekend." Verstappen continued.

That he himself is in the battle for pole position may be obvious, but who does he expect to compete within Japan? " It looks like it's all a bit tight behind me. Ferrari and McLaren are close so we'll have a look but I think, at the end of the day, we just focus on ourselves and try to optimise our performance" Verstappen said.