Following his victory in Monaco last weekend, Verstappen carried on where he left off by clocking the fastest times in both free practice sessions at the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona on Friday.
After gapping the field by 0.768s in FP1, Verstappen improved his best effort to a 1m13.907s in the afternoon as the only driver to dip under the 1m14s bracket.
Laptimes have improved significantly this year thanks to the unpopular final chicane being removed from the layout, making the last corner significantly faster than it has been since 2006.
Verstappen remarked that he was "positively surprised" by how he was able to follow cars through the fast final sector, amid hopes of improving overtaking opportunities.
His closest challenger was Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, who has urged his team to “speed up” its flow of updates to have any prospect of keep pace with its rivals amid significant upgrades from Ferrari and Mercedes in recent rounds.
The Scuderia has introduced Red Bull-inspired sidepods in Spain after Mercedes did likewise at Monaco, although it wouldn’t be correct to call Ferrari’s new parts a direct copy.
But neither of those squads were in the same ballpark as Alonso in FP2, with Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton predicting he may struggle to reach Q3 in qualifying unless the Brackley team makes significant improvements overnight.
Instead it was Nico Hulkenberg for Haas who set the third-fastest time, slotting in ahead of Sergio Perez in the second Red Bull and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, flying high after his Monaco podium.
Source: Autosport