'Quite satisfied' – Verstappen content with Friday Singapore pace but wants more 'to fight up at the front'

Max Verstappen was left "quite satisfied" with his Friday running ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix, but admits that he and Red Bull "definitely need a bit more pace to fight up at the front tomorrow".

The reigning World Champion enters this weekend on the streets of Singapore having taken two dominant back-to-back wins and reinvigorated a possible championship fightback against McLaren drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris with seven races remaining.

Verstappen finished both one-hour sessions third fastest and less than three-tenths off the outright pace on each occasion at the only venue on the current Formula 1 calendar where he has yet to stand on the top step.

"It was not too bad," said Verstappen when asked about his Friday running. "I think FP1 started quite nicely, we were just getting up to speed with things but the car was not too bad.

"A bit like the last two weekends where there were no major problems and then in FP2, a few things that we tried, some were good so we just need to try and optimise that a bit more. Overall and in general, quite satisfied but definitely need a bit more pace to fight up at the front tomorrow."

Verstappen admitted that "it's not like we need to throw around the set-up completely" and that it was more about fine-tuning the set-up in order to find performance gains for the remainder of the weekend.

He added: "Tiny details. Front grip, rear grip, keeping the tyres alive throughout the lap. Around here, the tyres overheat a lot, so all those things just need to be a little bit better and hopefully that will be a bit more in the window and then you can push also a bit harder."

Team mate Yuki Tsunoda looked to continue his good form from Baku, where he secured his best result with Red Bull, and finished ninth and 11th across both sessions.

The Japanese driver was left frustrated by a disrupted run plan in FP2, though, caused by two red flags for incidents involving George Russell and Liam Lawson.

"Tough, been able to have a smooth session I would say for everyone," he said.

"It's the kind of trend that FP2 [you're] never able to have a clean session so it's really p***** me off. But that's life, just stay calm and optimise the set-up. That's it."