‘They have to move!’ - Verstappen vents at ‘silly’ slow drivers in pit lane

The triple world champion was seen squeezing past the Mercedes duo of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton while exiting Yas Marina’s unique pit lane tunnel when FP2 resumed following a red flag. 

Verstappen complained over team radio about being blocked as he weaved past the Mercedes cars before continuing the heavily-disrupted session.

Asked about the incident following the session, the Dutchman aired his frustrations, saying: “They have to move! 

“They are all driving slow and I want to go out because we are all limited on time and they keep on driving in the middle. And then when I tried to pass they tried to squeeze me in the wall, so yeah, bit silly.” 

Verstappen finished third-fastest in second practice behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and McLaren’s Lando Norris. 

But Verstappen was unhappy with the balance of his Red Bull car, admitting his team have “a lot to figure out” in FP3 to be “good in qualifying”. 

“The balance was very off,” he explained. “A lot of understeer and jumping. So there’s a few things to figure out for tomorrow. 

“I also didn’t expect it to be so far off, so that’s a bit of a question mark for us. 

“We’re still P3, it’s not too bad. But balance-wise it could be better, so we’ll try and look what happened there.”