- Max Verstappen had a frustrating opening day at the Japanese Grand Prix
A perplexed Max Verstappen admitted he is lacking trust in his car after a frustrating opening day of running in Japan.
The four-time world champion has been vocal about the shortcomings of his Red Bull machine, which has proved difficult even for the greatest driver of his generation to tame, so far this season.
And the early signs suggest things won’t get much easier at this weekend’s race at Suzuka.
Verstappen posted the fifth-fastest time in first practice but was only eighth quickest in the second session of the day, though that period was heavily disrupted by four red flags.
More concerning, though, was Verstappen’s admission that he is lacking the trust to push his car to its limit around a circuit littered with high-speed corners.
He told Sky Sports: ‘It was a pretty tough day today. We tried a lot, but it didn’t really come together. You need a lot of trust and commitment here, but I don’t feel that at the moment.
A perplexed Max Verstappen admitted he is lacking trust in his car after a frustrating day
Verstappen posted the fifth-fastest time in FP1 but was only eighth quickest in FP2
The four-time world champion has been vocal about the shortcomings of his Red Bull machine
‘Today has been quite difficult for me. I’ve been trying a lot of different things with the car, but it seems a lot of things are not really clicking at the moment.
‘It’s quite difficult just to put the lap down. You need a lot of confidence around here and, at the moment, I don’t feel like I can use that, so we still have quite a bit of work to do.’
Friday’s practice sessions also saw home favourite Yuki Tsunoda take to the track as a Red Bull driver for the first time following his widely debated swap move with Liam Lawson.
Tsunoda has had limited time on the simulator driving his new car and is well aware of the stability issues which caused Lawson untold issues across the opening two weekends of the season.
But the Japanese racer, who was only a tenth of a second behind Verstappen in first practice before failing to post a time later in the day, now has a far greater understanding of the scale of his new challenge.
‘It’s a bit different to the simulator, what I felt, to be honest,’ revealed Tsunoda. ‘Maybe a little bit more than I expected in terms of car feeling.
‘I knew anyway that it’s always a bit different in the real car and it was just a bit more exaggerated in the real car, a bit more tricky.’
