Verstappen sounds Red Bull alarm: 'The gap is huge'

Max Verstappen lamented his Red Bull at the Bahrain Grand Prix, claiming the gap is "huge" to the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.

The Dutchman sat out of FP1 in Sakhir as Ayumu Iwasa took the cockpit of his RB21, as part of the FIA-mandated rookie practice requirements.

However, his weekend started disappointingly in the second hour of the day, ending FP2 seventh quickest and over eight-tenths of a second off the front-running pace of Piastri.

To make matters worse, Isack Hadjar in the Racing Bulls car was faster - on medium tyres to Verstappen's softs.

"It was difficult," the four-time F1 drivers' champion told his official website after the session. "Of course it took one, two laps to get into it, but the gap is huge."

Throughout FP2, Verstappen could be heard complaining to Red Bull over team radio, highlighting braking issues and a lack of grip.

Diagnosing the root of the issues, the 27-year-old explained that compared to the McLaren MCL39, the RB21 is "simply too slow" at the Bahrain International Circuit.

"I’m not completely happy," the 64-time grand prix winner said. "We had a lot of grip problems.

"We have a lot of work to do, also on the long runs. We’re simply too slow. To be honest, it wasn’t really fun on the longer runs.

"At the end I even had some drift training. The gap to the McLarens is big. We also had a different approach than other Fridays, so this gap is really big."