Max Verstappen left despondent as he gets outpaced by Yuki Tsunoda during the F1 Hungarian GP FP2

Max Verstappen was left surprised and a bit confused as the driver had a shocking first day of running in the F1 Hungarian GP, where even Yuki Tsunoda outpaced him. As a team, Red Bull can have its good days and bad days, but it is not often the case that we see Verstappen's teammate outpace him over a session and look more comfortable.

This was in evidence on Friday, as throughout FP2, it did appear that Verstappen was a step behind his teammate and just didn't have the pace of Tsunoda. There was always a bit of a gulf between the two drivers, and that gulf became an even bigger point of contention when the soft runs also didn't see much reversal of fortune.

As the day came to an end, while Yuki Tsunoda was in P9 in the timesheets, Max Verstappen was down in P14 and a few tenths down on his Red Bull teammate. In the last few years, it has been more or less a trend that the Japanese driver or any of the Dutch driver's teammates have struggled compared to the team leader.

Talking to the media, including Sportskeeda, Max Verstappen seemed a bit surprised as he lamented a lack of pace in the car and admitted that the performance was not where he expected it to be. He said,

"Today was very tough, just a really low grip feeling and not really a balance in the car, so it's difficult to say what the exact problem is," he reported. "Nothing really works, so this is something that we have to investigate overnight. So far, of course, it's not been our weekend."

He added,

"I'm sure we can do better, but today was quite bad, so we need to really understand first where it is, and what is causing us to have such a big problem with the car. McLaren looks really on it, they're flying, but there's a lot to be [found] to be a little bit closer to P2."

Max Verstappen unscathed after post-practice investigation

Max Verstappen was under investigation during FP2 because of a freak incident where the driver found a towel in his Red Bull while he was on his soft tire run. The driver would just find a safe place to get rid of it as he threw the towel on the side of the track.

When questioned by the media, the driver said that the option to throw it at the side of the track seemed the most sensible thing to do, and the stewards agreed with him as well. He said,

"It's just a towel that you normally wipe your face with when you come back in, so it was still in the car when I went out," Verstappen explained. "Instead of it potentially flying in between my feet, which is the dangerous part, I drove offline and I got rid of it in the safest way possible, so I think the stewards understand that."

The Dutch driver has a long night ahead of him as he hopes to make improvements and have a better showing on Saturday.

Edited by Charanjot Singh Kohli