Charles Leclerc says Ferrari has had an equally strong start to the Mexico City Grand Prix weekend and can compete with the struggling Max Verstappen in race form, but thinks McLaren could be out of reach.
Nine rookies took part in FP1 and Leclerc led the session, while Verstappen – who sat out the first hour – was fastest over one lap in FP2. Leclerc believes the race pace compared to Red Bull looked competitive, but he points to McLaren’s high fuel pace as particularly strong.
“Friday was positive,” said Leclerc. “We’re still behind compared to Red Bull, especially in terms of low fuel consumption, and McLaren, especially in terms of high fuel consumption. No surprises there. We expected them to be the strongest team here, but we did some pretty good laps.”
“I felt pretty good with the car. We have to build on that tomorrow and hopefully we can get some more performance.
“In terms of high fuel consumption, we were maybe a little bit better compared to Red Bull, but McLaren was in a class of its own, so I don’t know exactly what’s going on there. I hope they were on the low fuel consumption, but I don’t know.”
“They seem very strong, so for now it doesn’t seem realistic for us to fight with them in the race, but we are going to try to make changes to get closer to them.”
Leclerc finished second in FP2 and teammate Lewis Hamilton was also in the top five, but the seven-time world champion was also not happy with the driving behavior of his car.
“I’m surprised how relatively close we are, given how not great it felt,” Hamilton said. “I mean, every time you come here the grip is… Because of the altitude we all have quite a lot of downforce, but it feels lower than at Monza. You’re sliding around trying to find grip but it’s just not there.”
“The balance sheet is very open. I have a lot of work to do overnight to try to find a more streamlined balance.
“We’ll go through the data tonight and try to come up with some plans, but I definitely don’t want to race with what we had today. The long-term balance wasn’t disastrous, but it is.” [a matter of getting] more of the tires. I know there is more speed in the car.”
Verstappen backed Leclerc’s view that Red Bull’s race pace is lacking at this stage of the weekend, saying his only strength was the qualifying simulation.
“It was a bit of a long wait for the day, but in the short term I think we did a good lap on the soft slopes,” said Verstappen. “The rest and everything else was pretty bad. In the medium term the short runs weren’t great, and the big problem is the long runs, where we seem to be struggling a lot. That’s obviously a big concern for the race.”
“The balance wasn’t even disturbed. It was just no grip, and that’s the biggest problem. As soon as you make a sustained run, the tires get hot. Yeah, we weren’t anywhere. That’s also hard to figure out, but we’ll see.”
“You’re not going to win the race this way. You can be fast over one lap, but if you have absolutely no speed in the race, then it will be very difficult. I prefer to be fast in the race and not so fast over one lap.”
At McLaren it was Lando Norris who looked most comfortable despite missing FP1, although he is wary of how many other teams could pose a threat given the initial low fuel shortages.
“I think we’re definitely in a decent spot,” Norris said. “I feel like I got up to speed really quickly. I was quite surprised. My first lap was pretty good and the second lap was a good step.”
“It felt like I found the limit quickly… which holds us back a bit. Not that it was a bad day, but normally we’re really good on Friday, and then everyone catches up on Saturday. We’re already a bit behind, so we definitely have some work to do tonight.”
‘They solved it [the power surges] immediately. It’s just that the balance of the car is a bit mixed up. Same as the last few weeks, just one-round stuff. We’re having a hard time right now, so we’re working hard. We’re trying everything we can, so we’ll see what we can do and see what we can find.”
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