Red Bull has closed gap to Ferrari, say drivers

The Austrian team had a low-key start to the season, usually running as best of the rest behind a Mercedes/Ferrari title contest that it was looking to participate in.

While maintaining that its Renault engine accounts for a chunk of its deficit to the front, Red Bull was hoping for noticeable improvement from the major aero upgrade package it was bringing to the first round of the European leg in Barcelona.

In the Spanish GP's Friday practice, Red Bull's quickest lap, courtesy of Verstappen, was 0.636s off the pace-setting Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton – and just three tenths slower the lead Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen.

"I think [we are] a little bit happier, but we still need to work very hard to get more pace in the car and the engine," Verstappen claimed after Friday running.

"We made a good step forward, we are a little bit closer to Ferrari. But I think Mercedes, as well, brought a very good update package, so they are still ahead."

He added: "It is always good to go forward and that is what we did today. We definitely gained a bit of grip so that is always positive."

Teammate Ricciardo, who lapped a tenth off Verstappen on Friday, produced a similar assessment of Red Bull's competitiveness.

"We have made some progress but we knew it wasn't going to put us up with Mercedes or anything," Ricciardo said. "I feel we can still perfect what we have got, get a few more tenths out of it.

"Obviously we want more, but we are in line with what we predicted."

The Aussie conceded that the car was performing better on the soft tyre compound compared to medium Pirelli rubber, and reckoned Red Bull would need to extract more from the update before qualifying if it is to challenge Ferrari.

"The medium at the start of Q2 was a struggle but we found a good chunk on the soft. We are getting there. We are feeling a bit of progress so we need to keep fine-tuning it," he said.

"Looking at Ferrari, we are not too far off them, but I think we are still going to need to make improvements tomorrow if we are going to make a real impression on them in qualifying."

Additional reporting by Jonathan Noble