The times on Friday do not assign points or positions on the starting grid, yet those that emerged today in Mexico at the end of the second free practice session have achieved a goal.
From the beginning of the season in the all-out confrontation between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton nothing has been left to chance, and when messages can be sent that destabilize the opponent’s box, the possibility is seized on the fly.
The time printed today by Verstappen in the FP2 session not only confirmed the Dutchman’s excellent start to the weekend, but created a bit of discomfort in Mercedes, as confirmed by Hamilton himself. 0 ”509 the gap remedied by the world champion against Max in the qualifying simulation, and more than six tenths of a second per lap in the long-run. But what went wrong in the Mercedes garage?
“We had no particular problems – commented Hamilton – the car in general performed well. I think we’re using just everything there, we don’t have a specific concern, they (referring to Red Bull) are just faster than us. When there is a difference of half a second it is almost always explained by the lack of downforce, because otherwise we are really doing our best. At the moment they are definitely too fast for us ”.
Hamilton does not say it openly, but it is clear that the blow that arrived today has extinguished the hopes of trying a counter-break, or the attempt to recover from Red Bull (on a track unfavorable to Mercedes) what he lost in Austin with reversed roles. .
The only question that remains open is that related to margins. Today the asphalt of the Hermanos Rodriguez circuit proved to be incredibly dirty and, above all, in the first practice session the cars raised a cloud of dust that gradually dropped (but not completely disappeared) in the afternoon session.
The grip was far from being in line with the usual parameters, but tomorrow the situation should improve with the rubber of the asphalt, especially in the ideal line.
On the power unit front, according to Red Bull, Mercedes has squeezed everything possible. “During the sessions, we have a group of analysts in Milton Keynes studying the GPS data – revealed Christian Horner – so we can understand when they ‘turn on’ the engine and when they ‘turn it off’, and they will certainly do the same with us. It’s a way to monitor what they still have in their pockets, and that’s what we’ve seen today ”.
In conditions of very poor grip, Red Bull has confirmed enviable stability, and at Mercedes they hope that the evolution of the track will meet their needs. In fact this is the only hope that the world champion team has to reduce the gap from Verstappen, but the impression is that the track conditions can reduce the gaps, but not change the positions.
Behind Verstappen, between Bottas (second) and Sergio Perez (fourth) the gap is 0 ”146, and here the battle for a front row seat is still open.
The trio seems to be safe from attacks from the rest of the group, given that the first of the ‘others’, Carlos Sainz, was confirmed half a second behind Perez. For Ferrari, Mexican Friday started with an unexpected event, due to a contact by Charles Leclerc against the external barriers of turn ’16’ which cost the Monegasque a half-hour stop in the pits for repairs, but otherwise the indications arrived have been positive.
Ferrari too, like all single-seaters on the track (with the exception of Red Bull), will try to work on balancing, hoping that the track will improve traction, but the two SF21s have nonetheless confirmed themselves as the favorites to occupy the role of third force, leaving see further room for improvement.
Also in this case the questions are more linked to margins than to positions, and the objective at the moment remains to place the two cars in the third row, a target that seems within reach.
The direct opponent, namely McLaren, never shows his full potential on Fridays, but seeing both Norris and Ricciardo out of the top-10 (the Australian also due to a transmission problem) does not help to believe in the possibility of a great redemption tomorrow.
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