Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez have a number of concerns following practice for Sunday’s 2023 Dutch Grand Prix.
After dominating the first half of 2023, Red Bull arrived in Zandvoort looking to continue where they left off, with Verstappen topping Practice 1, before being pipped to the top of the timesheets in Practice 2 by McLaren‘s Lando Norris by 0.023s, with the top 16 separated by less than a second.
“Yeah, I think [we had a] pretty good [day],” Verstappen told selected media outlets, including Total-Motorsport.com. “We tried some things on the car. I think FP2 was a little bit more difficult.
“Overall, it was really difficult to get a clean lap, a lot of cars around, but I was just fine. There was always a little bit of sliding around, but I was a bit close to the car ahead.
“I still wanted to see if I could brake later. Obviously, you don’t want to spin or whatever, so you just go across the gravel trap, but it was alright in the end.”
Perez dealing with dusty surface
On the other side of the Red Bull garage, Perez was a little behind his teammate, finishing the morning session fourth fastest and the afternoon session seventh.
Like most of the field, Perez had his running cut in FP2 after Oscar Piastri and Daniel Ricciardo had separate crashes at Turn 3, with the AlphaTauri driver being taken to hospital in Haarlem for a check-up on his left arm.
“The grid is looking really tight,” said Perez. “There is quite a bit of dust in the final sector, but overall, I think it’s been a positive start.
“We just have to bring everything together and try to put the perfect lap together to make sure we qualify where we should.
“I think if we have a strong Qualifying tomorrow, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be high up [on the grid] and have a strong weekend.”
