Verstappen realistic: "Will try to get most out of car"

Despite him finishing in the top three in both practice sessions on Friday, Max Verstappen thinks that it'll be difficult for him to actually fight for his first-ever pole position in Singapore.

The Dutchman finished second in FP1, only beaten by his teammate Daniel Ricciardo, and third in FP2, despite him spending the majority in the session in the garage with an engine problem. The pace the Dutchman has at the Marina Bay Street Circuit could cause an upset in qualifying, no doubt, but the 20-year-old himself knows he'll have to pull out all stops to do so.

"It was not a perfect day, but we still have time to improve for qualifying," Verstappen was quoted by F1only.

"The first practice in the morning was good, but I was not happy at the second session in the afternoon.

"We don't think we have the pace to fight for pole position, but we'll try to get the most out of the package on the car.

"Once we have passed the short stints, the race pace should improve.

"We still have work to do, but we will also monitor the hypersoft tyres because the pace drops very quickly.

"The other compounds are not so bad, which should offer us an interesting race."

Red Bull aren't expected to qualify on pole, as we also explained in our Singapore preview, but their race pace could get them the win eventually. We all know Daniel Ricciardo loves a street circuit, and with the Aussie getting on the podium four times in a row in Singapore without winning, he'll have a chip on his shoulder.

Verstappen himself will also be within contention, but as we saw in FP2, you never know when those Red Bulls engines will just give up. Fingers crossed, hopefully they can at least make things interesting and compete with Ferrari and Mercedes.