Max Verstappen has downplayed Red Bull’s early impressive🌳 form after topping the timeshe𝔉ets on the opening day of Formula 1 pre-season testing.

Verstappen set the fastest ༺time on day one of testing in Bahrain, just over 0.2s clear of McLaren’s Lando Norris.

The Dutchman completed 139 laps come the c﷽los🉐e of the day - the most of any single driver.

While it was a strong day for Red Bull, reigning champions Mercedes completed the fewest laps of anyone after a gear shift issue forced 🐻it into a gearbox change in the morning session.

Reflecting on the opening day of testing in Bahrain, Verstappen wasn’t getting carr♚i🐓ed away after topping the timesheets but felt it was “a very positive day”.

“Yeah very good, we had a very positive day,” Verstappen said. “We could do a lot of laps, even though the track conditions were quite difficult - very warm, a lot of wind - and of course we know the🙈 degradation around here is quite high and it’s not easy to do a lot of laps in a row.

“But very happy with today. I mean, we don’t need to speak about pace or whatever, we just did our prog𓆉ramme, the car felt nice to drive which I think is always very positive to start the test like that.”

A sandstorm had hiꦑt t💫he circuit resulting in poor track conditions and visibility.

Speaking of the conditions, he added: “The heat initially just makes it all a bit more difficult in general, but I have to say I changed my visor and I think it’s always looking a bit more tricky on the camera. Wꦗhen y💙ou’re sitting in the car it’s fine.”

Verstappen will hand the RB16B over to ne💟w teammate Se✅rgio Perez for day two of the test.