Max Verstappen emerged from Formula 1’s first day back at Sepang with plenty of encouragement but no illusions that Red Bull has everything figured out.
The Dutchman topped opening practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia before ending FP2 fourth, 0.257 seconds behind Charles Leclerc.
More intriguingly, Verstappen never sampled the soft tyre during the second session, deliberately sacrificing a potential qualifying-style lap to focus on longer-run data.
It was an unusual choice in a practice session where the threat of rain prompted most of the field to rush through their soft-tyre programmes. For Verstappen and Red Bull, however, the possibility of a downpour changed the priorities.
“I think we had a decent start, but it's tricky,” he explained after FP2. “The track is really hot, a lot of degradation, so a lot of things to figure out but it's been positive.”
Red Bull chooses data over headline lap
Verstappen was subsequently asked whether the team had been able to make meaningful progress during the day, but the changing conditions made any straightforward comparison difficult.
“I mean, progress is difficult. It was warmer again in FP2, different programmes, so hard to say progress, but there's still a lot of things to look at to try and understand better.”
The decision not to chase a soft-tyre benchmark was deliberate rather than a sign that Red Bull had overlooked the opportunity.
“I wanted to do a long run in case there was some rain coming.”
Technical director Pierre Wache explained that the team had effectively gambled on obtaining information it considered more valuable for the weekend.
“I think we had a little bit of an issue with the car and the rain coming,” said Wache.
“The forecast said the rain will come, then we didn't want to compromise the long run that I think is the most important thing for this weekend, in terms of degradation and to see how the tyre behaves, and especially the medium because we didn't have data on the medium.
“We favoured that, and after it was too late to run the soft.”
Encouragement, but no complacency
Red Bull had also arrived in Malaysia unsure of how its latest package would translate to Sepang’s faster corners after the team introduced it in Baku.
“We were not very optimistic, to be honest, starting the weekend. The main aspect for us was to evaluate the package we put in Baku, in different types of corner than low speed.
“It looks [to be] working better than the previous package. Relative performance is difficult to judge here, but we were surprisingly happy with where we were today.”
Wache believes the competitive picture remains difficult to read, although Mercedes and McLaren appeared strong over longer runs.
“There's a chance of rain every day, every session,” the Frenchman said. “We've never run in the rain properly. The first time we ran in the rain was in Barcelona [Shakedown].
“The car evolved a lot. We don't know how the car will behave around this condition – it's a surprise. I hope it will give us a little bit some gamble in terms of strategy and how to play with. Let's see where we are.”
For Verstappen, the opening day was therefore less about chasing a Friday headline and more about building a picture of a demanding circuit where tyre degradation, heat and potentially rain could quickly turn the competitive order on its head.
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