Max Verstappen said he felt like he was “driving on ice” as he finished 17th in the second practice session in Las Vegas.

With reports that Red Bull have brought the wrong rear wing to the race, Verstappen and Sergio Perez will have to make do with what they have got but the Dutchman said they have “no grip” on the circuit.

Max Verstappen reacts to P17 finish in Las Vegas FP2

Verstappen entered the weekend hoping to leave as a four-time World Champion but a P5 and a P17 in the opening two practice sessions suggested it would not be an easy task.

The cold temperatures of the session beginning at 10pm local time affected everyone but Verstappen’s low position in FP2 suggested he suffered more than most.

“[It was] slippery,” he said. “I think we struggled a lot with making the tyres work, over one lap especially.

“The long run I think started off a bit more competitive, but even there I think we need to fine-tune a few things. The one-lap pace is quite far off.

“Of course, it’s quite unique conditions around here and it’s very cold, but at the end of the day it’s the same for everyone, so we need to try and understand what we’re doing wrong at the moment.”

Probed on what exactly was causing his issues, Verstappen said the balance was okay but the problem “feels massively tyre-related.”

“I mean, for me it just feels massively tyre-related. The balance of the car is not even that wrong, I think, it’s just we have no grip – it’s like driving on ice at the moment.”

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His team-mate Sergio Perez finished P10 and P19 and raised similar concerns as Verstappen.

“I think we’ve got some work to do over one lap,” Perez said. “I think the long run looked a little bit more promising but I think we’ve got some work to do to really try to exploit everything because we are not where we want, especially over a single lap.

“I think we’ve got some work to do. We know that here, Sunday is the most important, and you can overtake and so on. So it will be very critical to be able to have some good pace.

“I think, mainly with balance in the low speed [is where we struggled], the rear is stepping out a lot. We came down with the rear wing a lot and it made it quite tricky in low speed.”

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