Marko on Verstappen's disappearing dominance: 'We suffered some small problems'

Red Bull Motorsport Advisor Helmut Marko has explained why Max Verstappen's Formula 1 dominance disappeared between Friday's practice sessions for the Spanish Grand Prix.

The two-time World Champion set a blistering benchmark to finish over seven-tenths up on teammate Sergio Perez in FP1, who was second quickest.

But Fernando Alonso cut the deficit to only 0.170s in the second session to provide optimism for a pole position battle at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Detailing why Verstappen's gap evaporated between sessions, Marko told media, including RacingNews365.com: "That has to do with the fact that in the second free practice, we concentrated mainly on the long runs and over one lap we suffered from some small problems."

Perez moves towards Verstappen

Perez was also able to close the gap to the Dutchman in FP2 but found himself behind Alonso and the Haas of Nico Hulkenberg.

"He moved a bit more towards Verstappen's with the set-up of the car, which made the times slightly better," said Marko.

"However, he has the problem of not being able to drive constant lap times over a longer period of time.

"We will check what we can still do about that, maybe we need to take more steps towards Verstappen's set-up."