Max Verstappen and Alex Albon had quite similar results in first two practices of the Abu Dhabi weekend. In FP1 they managed to overtake Ferrari driver, finishing the session in P2 (Max) and P4 (Alex). The second one was obviously more difficult for teammates since Verstappen and Albon lost to Vettel and Leclerc, showing P5 (Max) and P6 (Alex).

Max Verstappen thinks Friday wasn’t too bad, but obviously Mercedes is still very fast on this track, and it will be difficult for Red Bull to beat them on Saturday. Also Max isn’t satisfied with the balance of the car and need to find the optimal tyres work, so the team has some things to improve.

"Overall, it was a pretty decent Friday. I’m not entirely happy with the balance yet and there are of course still some things we need to look at and do better but overall I’m pretty pleased," – the Dutch said.

"Mercedes looks very strong here again and will be hard to beat but I still think it will be close tomorrow. We will analyse the tyre data later today but overall there are no real surprises. The soft is quick over one lap and on race runs it drops off as expected."

Max’s teammate Alex Albon has admitted that it was quite tricky day for him, especially in terms of work with tyres. As for balance of the car Alex said it was good, however the team needs to do some improvements to get closer to the rivals.

"It’s difficult to get the tyres working and there’s quite a lot of dust down so that’s why we saw a lot of cars spinning. The balance was ok and we know we need to improve a little bit here and there but Max looked quick so let’s see how things go tomorrow. I think I’ve got a little bit of fine tuning to do on my side, especially in sector three, but we’re chipping away. The Ferraris will of course be quick in qualifying but let’s see where we are come qualifying."