Red Bull are off the pace, admits Verstappen

Max Verstappen says Red Bull are "too far away" to claim pole position at this weekend's Singapore GP on the basis of Friday's practice sessions.

The Dutchman, a specialist on tight tracks who won at Monaco earlier this year, nevertheless expects to struggle at the Marina Bay street circuit after finishing FP2 almost half a second behind pacesetter Kimi Raikkonen in the Ferrari.

"It was OK, I think we can still improve with the car," Verstappen said ahead of Sunday's Singapore GP, which is live on eir sport 1 [race time 1.10pm Irish time].

"It was not the perfect day for me, but we will see what's going to happen tomorrow.

"I don't think we have the pace to fight for pole, but we'll try to optimise the car a bit more.

"We're a bit too far away so we still need to improve the car a bit more, but we have another night to work on that, and we’ll see where we end up."

Raikkonen led Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes by just 0.011 seconds in second practice, while Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel was ninth after hitting the wall on the exit of Turn 21 and damaging the right rear of his car.

"The bad was the touch to the wall, which made the session come to an end," Vettel, who trails championship leader Hamilton by 30 points with seven races of the season remaining, said.

"We lost some time, which is not ideal but nevertheless the feel I had for the car was all right and we should be fine for tomorrow,

"It was very close and I expect it to be very close tomorrow."

You can follow the Singapore round of the Formula 1 World Championship live on eir sport across the weekend of 14-16 September.

Image: Getty Images/Mark Thompson

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