Amidst ongoing issues with the RB21 and 0.6s off the pace, Max Verstappen's main hope this weekend is the intervention of the Weather Gods.

"Rain, rain, rain," is what Zak Brown and many others are predicting for Sunday's Grand Prix, and at Red Bull, Max Verstappen, for one, will be delighted.

Both he and his teammate struggled in today's sessions, for despite the raft of upgrades the RB21 still appears to be suffering the same issues encountered in Bahrain last month.

"The balance wasn't even completely out," insisted the Dutchman after today's session. "Like, no massive or major problems, but somehow the grip was not coming alive and... just struggling on all four tyres, really, in sector one and the last sector. That means of course that we are not really up there at the moment.

"The problem is that it's not really like I have major balance problems," he continued, "so I think it will be a bit hard to fix. But it's also nothing that I didn't expect when I arrived here, so I'm not positively or negatively surprised with the pace that we are showing."

"The first practice session was better," Helmut Marko told Sky Sports Germany. "The changes we made afterwards didn't prove successful.

"We still have one more session tomorrow," he continued, "but I estimate we're about two to three-tenths behind and, at best, looking at the second row.

"The car was fluctuating between understeer and oversteer, which, of course, affects tyre wear in the long run. But I believe we know what needs to be done.

"We're not at the very front but, under normal conditions, a podium finish would be the maximum we can aim for."

It was aa difficult session for teammate Liam Lawson also, the kiwi well off the pace in both session.

"We're comparing him with Antonelli, who is also driving here for the first time," said Marko. "The two are more or less on the same pace, despite Lawson not running with full engine power. So, it's okay, but there's definitely more to come from him.

"It looks like McLaren is the strongest team at the moment, with a close fight between Ferrari, Mercedes, and us," added the Austrian. "That battle could be for positions three to five. But I've heard there might be rain, and if that happens, the 'Max factor' comes into play again."

"I'm comfortable, just too slow," admitted Lawson. "We obviously have a lot of work to do overnight.

"Day one, on a new track, we were expecting to have some work to do, but probably not this much. We'll work on it overnight and then try and improve it for tomorrow.

"In general, just grip when we need to use it on that short run," he replied when asked what his main problem was, "but then in general our long run pace was slow as well. We'll work on it."

Check out our Friday gallery from Albert Park here.