Red Bull drivers struggling on soft tyres after Bahrain GP practice

With Red Bull ending up behind Renault as the nearest challenger to Ferrari and Mercedes in second practice for this weekend's second round of the 2019 season, it knows it needs to make a step forward.

But while the drivers were encouraged by how their car performed on the medium compound in practice on Friday, both explained that Red Bull needs to work overnight to understand why the RB15 is not as competitive on the soft rubber.

After ending up sixth in FP2, Verstappen said: "It has been OK but there is still quite a bit of work to do. I am still not happy with how the car is behaving.

"We will look into the data tonight to see what we can improve.

"On the medium tyre, we were really competitive. We should have been fast, but out of the last corner I had a little issue so I lost a few tenths there.

"But then on the softest tyre, I didn't feel the grip like I should have. We need to look into that."

"We are still lacking a bit of pace with the soft tyres, but we will work tonight to find out for tomorrow."

After beating Ferrari in Australia, both Red Bull drivers said it was not a huge surprise to see their rival outfit strike back.

"I don't know what went wrong in Melbourne but now they are very competitive again," said Verstappen. "So that is what we expected."

Gasly added: "We knew they would be fast, especially on this track. They have been fast every year and I think Australia was weird. But they clearly look very strong this weekend."