Red Bull’s Max Verstappen reflected on a “difficult” opening day of practice for the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix which saw him end proceedings 15th fastest.
In 2023, Singapore was the only venue where Red Bull failed to taste victory amid a period of historic dominance.
Fast-forward 12 months and Verstappen is on a winless run of seven races with Singapore continuing to expose Red Bull’s pitfalls.
The Dutchman was three-tenths off the pace in FP1 on Friday in fourth and 1.3s back from the top in FP2, finishing 15th.
“It was difficult, just not having the grip that we would like, so we have a few things to look at,” Verstappen told F1.
“[The kerbs] are less of a problem, to be honest, I was already struggling with the bumps, the kerbs and just general grip.
“We have to look at the trade-offs between the two.”
Verstappen’s closest challengers in the title race, Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris, topped FP1 & FP2 respectively.
But while the duo enjoyed Friday’s proceedings, Verstappen was complaining over team radio, saying “I have no grip in the low speed, front and rear.”
Verstappen leads Norris by 59 points in the Drivers’ standings and will need Red Bull to improve to keep that gap from dwindling further.
READ MORE: Lando Norris fastest in F1 Singapore GP second practice
Sergio Perez betters Max Verstappen in FP2
Sergio Perez led the line for Red Bull in FP2, finishing in eighth place and half a second quicker than Verstappen.
Still, that was of little consequence to the Mexican, who said his car felt “all over the place during FP2.”
“I think we improved a little bit [between FP1 and FP2], but still we are lacking quite a lot of balance,” Perez said.
“It’s quite difficult out there to put a lap together, [so] it’s not looking great at the moment.”
Perez was running in third position until a penultimate lap crash with Carlos Sainz during the Azerbaijan GP.
With both he and Red Bull faring better last time out, Perez admitted a lot of work is needed to be competitive in Singapore.
“Definitely we’ve got some work to do overnight because we are quite far [behind],” he said.
“We are nearly a second off the pace, so we need quite a big change to be able to come through. We’ll see what we’re able to do.”
As it stands, being eight-tenths adrift on one-lap pace puts Red Bull in a dangerous predicament.
Last year the team failed to reach the top-10 Q3 shootout in qualifying and 2024 could be similarly painful for Red Bull.
READ MORE: Max Verstappen punished over Singapore F1 swearing incident
