Max Verstappen says he is encouraged by Red Bull's long run pace following "one of the best Friday's" of 2016 at the Japanese Grand Prix.
Verstappen ended the second practice session in fourth, sandwiched between the Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel. The Dutchman was left feeling confident of his team's prospects at Suzuka after showing strong long-run pace in both sessions.
"I think it's one of the best Fridays so far," Verstappen said. "Everything seemed to work really well, the car handling is good, long run pace was good. I think we are quite happy but of course we still have work to do.
"It was positive again. It was a good Friday, I think a bit similar to Malaysia so you can't complain. Of course we still want to improve but so far I have quite a good feeling with the car."
Despite finishing behind Raikkonen in the afternoon session, Verstappen, who made his F1 practice debut at Suzuka in 2014, played down Ferrari's pace and said he had been compromised on his flying lap when the Virtual Safety Car was deployed for Esteban Gutierrez's stranded Haas.
"We were trying to push on our timed lap and the Virtual Safety Car came out so we had to box and then go out again on used tyres which were very cold. It should be better than the Ferrari. On the short run with the Virtual Safety Car we didn't get our lap in, so we'll see.
"It ruined our short run a bit, so the pace in the short run didn't look too good but it was just because we were already preparing our fast lap and then we had to come in again so the tyres cool down. That's not ideal, but I think from the long run we had a really good balance."
When asked if a front row start could be possible for Red Bull if the forecasted does arrive in time for qualifying, Verstappen replied: "We'll see tomorrow. At the moment the possibility very strong so we will try to be close and hopefully with some rain tomorrow that could help us.
"It would be a little bit better than us, I think. So if it rains I think we will be quite happy. In the wet we have even more of a chance to do a good job, so yeah, rain, I would like that. Hopefully we can be close to the Mercedes cars."