Red Bull “a bit too slow – simple as that”

Max Verstappen admitted Red Bull are “a bit too slow” after the opening day of practice for the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.

The championship leader, who has won his home grand prix all three times it has been held since returning to the calendar in 2021, was fifth-fastest at the end of the second practice session behind both Mercedes and McLarens.

Despite his best time being only 0.284s slower than George Russell’s overall fastest lap, Verstappen believes Red Bull have to find more time to be able to fight their rivals for victory this weekend.

“In FP1, I didn’t really get a lot of running in, but I guess in FP2 you could see a little bit more where you are,” Verstappen told the official F1 channel.

“A bit too slow on the short run, a bit too slow on the long run. So a bit of work to do. At the moment, no clear answer of how to improve that specifically, but we’ll look into things. But yeah, a bit too slow – simple as that.”

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner believes his team will have a challenging time over the rest of the weekend as they look to win their first grand prix since Spain.

“I think it’s going to be very, very tight tomorrow,” Horner told Sky. “It depends what the weather’s going to do – the forecast looks horrible and then Sunday looks alright. But it’s definitely going to be a tight one.”

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With Verstappen’s team mate Sergio Perez only 12th fastest in practice at Zandvoort and rivals McLaren having out-scored Red Bull over the last five rounds, Horner says that the reason for the deficit is “because we haven’t had both cars up there.”

“We’re aware of that,” he continued. “We’ve taken engine penalties, we’ve had DNFs. We’re very clear on what we need to do and turn around and I’m confident we will.

“Ten races is still a chunk of points. But out of the first 14, we’ve won seven of them. We’ve qualified first at nine of them. We’ve won two sprint races. But the competition has concertina-ed. We’re going to need both cars firing on all cylinders. So this weekend’s important, as they all are in the run in to the end of the championship.”

Despite not being at the front in either of the two practice sessions after the long summer break, Verstappen says he is not disheartened by his team’s performance after the first day of practice.

“It’s where we have been the last few races, so it’s not really a…