Red Bull: VSC hid pace on "one of the best Fridays so far"

The pair were fifth and sixth in FP1, and while Verstappen moved up to fourth in the second session, he was eight tenths off the pacesetting Mercedes of Nico Rosberg, with teammate Daniel Ricciardo only 12th.

However, the Red Bull drivers have again been boosted by their long-run showing, which had also looked good in the build-up to their ultra-successful run in the Malaysian GP.

"It is one of the best Fridays so far," Verstappen declared, "Everything went well, car handling good and long run pace good. We are quite happy.

"This track should be quite positive for us as well, you can see today we were not too far off. You cannot really say with the short run, [as] with the VSC we had to come in."

Asked whether their long runs looked on par with the pacesetting Mercedes cars, Verstappen said: "Yeah, I think on both tyres – even on the hard it looked very, very good. But we have to wait and see if they are in the right engine modes. It is positive."

Verstappen's sentiments were echoed by Ricciardo, who said: "I think it was a pretty good day, pretty good afternoon. We made some improvements from this morning, the long run seemed pretty solid again there."

Ricciardo did, however, concede that on one-lap pace the team wasn't quite there with Ferrari, which finished ahead in FP2 through Kimi Raikkonen:

"The lap we had to abort was definitely in the 1m32s so would definitely have put me behind Kimi’s time. Ferrari looked pretty strong but [we] looked close enough for today.

"I think here, if we get the car hooked up in qualifying, we can be strong and can be close to Mercedes and hopefully ahead of Ferrari - but Kimi’s time was solid today."

Rain hopes

Both RBR drivers readily admitted, however, that they would welcome rainy conditions on Saturday, as they'd have a better chance of challenging for a front row spot on a wet track.

"We normally are good in the wet so it might help us get a front row," Ricciardo said. "I am ready if it is wet. I do like this place, it is fun in both conditions, so we will do what we can."

Said Verstappen: "If we get the right car balance, normally in the rain we are quite strong. For us it will be very nice.

"In the wet we have more of a chance to do a good job."

Additional reporting by Jonathan Noble