Max Verstappen will benefit from a different engine for Saturday

If his third place seemed to bode well for a good start to the weekend, Max Verstappen was unable to repeat his performance in FP2 at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi this Friday. Only 6th, the Dutchman admits to having identified the causes of his lap times in night conditions.

« We tried different things today to see what suited the conditions, specifies the pilot Red Bull Racing. I was quite happy in the first session but not really in the second.

We know what changed, what stopped me from shooting as well as I wanted, so we should be able to fix that for tomorrow. This track especially has a lot of corner sequences, so we need to be able to have a handling car to be able to compete.

We need to improve the settings, but we're not looking too far ahead, so it's a positive result to take from today's work. »

Max Verstappen also expects an improvement in the performance of his car on the engine level, with a change to come on the Dutchman's RB13. “The engine we had today was an old one, it's definitely not 100%, so we'll change that tomorrow to improve the power.

With a new engine and improved set-up, I am confident we will be in a good position. Mercedes still looks like they're the team to beat, as they have been all year, so we'll try to get as close as possible. »