2021 Turkish GP : Post-Friday practice reaction from Max and Perez

Red Bull and Max Verstappen started 2021 Turkish GP Friday practice with a good news, his title rival Lewis Hamilton set to take engine penalty and so the Brit will start 10 places behind from his qualifying position.

The Bulls first outing on track in their special Japanese livery began with Free Practice One on Friday morning. Both Max Verstappen and Checo Perez spent the majority of the hour out on track. 

Max completed 24 laps with a best time of 1:24.603 which saw him in P2 behind the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton. Checo also put in 24 laps with a fastest time of 1:25.459 placing him in P10.

In Friday’s Free Practice Two session, the sun had disappeared, but the cloud didn’t change the track temperature too much. The Bulls hit the circuit again almost as soon as the session went green and started to put in flying laps.

Checo’s stint consisted of 28 laps with a best time of 1:24.373 which saw him sitting in P4. Max put in an another solid stint finishing in P5 with a session-best time of 1:24.439 after completing 27 laps.

It will be interesting to where Red Bull’s will be after the qualifying on Saturday, irrespective of Lewi’s penalty Bull’s should be on Pole to increase the advantage over title rivals.

Max Verstappen

“It’s a super nice track especially with the improved conditions but it looks like we have a lot to go through this evening because today wasn’t the best of days. We tried a few different things going from FP1 to FP2 but we’re still looking around for improvements as we don’t have a lot of data on these cars for this track.

Of course, Lewis is taking a penalty on Sunday but we have to focus on ourselves, hopefully we can make improvements before qualifying tomorrow as we have some challenges, we’ll see what we can do. I’m just looking forward to the rest of the weekend and getting back out there on track.”

Sergio Perez

“It has been a positive Friday overall and with the work we will do this evening we should be looking good for qualifying. The amount of grip surprised me today; it is more like a standard track out there now, but it is still very challenging because the grip is not consistent.

Sometimes on the entrance to the corner you have less grip than on the exit, so as a driver it is difficult to adjust to that aspect of this track. Mercedes look strong here but hopefully overnight we are able to chip away a couple of tenths and be in the mix for tomorrow.

It is all about compromise because if you try and get the ideal balance for qualifying over one lap then you compromise the long run pace a bit, which is important here because overtaking is relatively easy. There is the potential of rain for qualifying tomorrow, but we will be well prepared, whatever the weather.”