Verstappen takes it calmly: “I’m happy, but we still need to do a couple of things.”

The 2024 Formula 1 season has already begun. He did it today, Thursday, February 29 – a leap day – in the first two free practice sessions of the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Last week we managed to “silence” the pre-season tests, which were held on the same track. The feeling left by these tests will continue into the 2023 campaign as Red Bull looks set to be the first force on the grid again.

For his part, Max Verstappen, who ended the pre-season with a smile, had a slightly more difficult day today. The Dutchman finished sixth in both sessions and also had some minor gearshift problems. However, this indicates that not all riders were riding at maximum power today, so the schedule should not be too representative.

“It wasn’t bad, I think we’re all close. “Probably someone else is already using more powerful cards in terms of maximum speed, but we focused on ourselves,” admitted the three-time world champion after the first day of free practice of the season.

“We encountered some balance issues from front to back today, but nothing too serious. It’s just a matter of finding the best working window., especially here with such hard asphalt. When you find that perfect window, you start to buy a lot of time, so we’ll try to find that window for tomorrow,” he says.

Red Bull is focused on finding the optimal operating window for the RB20 at this track. Verstappen knows classification is important, but the energy drink brand wants to put all its strength into Saturday’s race, when the first points for the course will be awarded.

“Not everyone has set the powertrain map to maximum, but some certainly do.. I’m not worried about the “break” from first place, but we’ll all be close in the standings… it’ll be fun. In the long term, I’m happy, but we still need to do some things to make things better.“, said the representative of the Netherlands.

“We are not far from this window, all that remains is to take advantage of it. I felt a little more comfortable with the car, but at the end of the day, you also want to focus on long distances where the car needs to perform well.. Obviously, classification is important but we have to make sure the car is in good condition for the race“, Max Verstappen ended the conversation.