Max Verstappen admits that there is a lack of “confidence” and “confidence” in his Red Bull car after a first day of disappointing practice at the Japan Grand Prix

A Max Verstappen Perplexed admitted that he lacked confidence in his car after a frustrating opening day in Japan.

The quadruple world champion has expressed the gaps in his Machine Red Bull, which turned out to be difficult even for the biggest driver of his generation to tame, so far this season.

And the first signs suggest that things will not be much easier during this weekend race in Suzuka.

Verstappen posted the fifth fastest time in the first training, but was only the fastest eighth in the second session of the day, although this period was strongly disturbed by four red flags.

More worrying, however, was the admission of Verstappen that he lacks confidence to push his car to its limit around a circuit strewn with high -speed corners.

He told Sky Sports: “It was a fairly difficult day today. We tried a lot, but it didn’t really meet. You need a lot of confidence and commitment here, but I don’t feel it at the moment.

Verstappen displayed the fifth fastest period of FP1 but was only eighth faster in FP2

The quadruple world champion expressed the gaps in his Red Bull machine

“Today has been difficult for me. I tried a lot of different things with the car, but it seems that a lot of things don’t really click right now.

“It is quite difficult to lower the tour. You need a lot of confidence here and, for the moment, I do not feel like I can use it, so we still have a lot of work to do.

Friday’s training sessions also saw the favorite at home, Yuki Tsunoda, taking the track as Red Bull driver for the first time after his swap move widely debated with Liam Lawson.

Tsunoda has had a limited time on the simulator to drive its new car and is well aware of stability problems that caused Lawson Untold problems throughout the first two weekends of the season.

But the Japanese runner, who was only a tenth of a second behind Verstappen in the first practice before not publishing a time later in the day, now has a much better understanding of the scale of his new challenge.

“It’s a little different from the simulator, what I felt, to be honest,” Tsunoda revealed. “Maybe a little more than what I expected in terms of feeling of car.

“I still knew that it is always a little different in the real car and that it was a little more exaggerated in the real car, a little more delicate.”