Lewis Hamilton admits Red Bull have early advantage in Mexico
Max Verstappen set the fastest lap in Friday practice at the Mexican Grand Prix, with Lewis Hamilton admitting Red Bull may have the upper hand.
Lewis Hamilton admitted Red Bull may have the upper hand in Mexico. (Wolfgang Wilhelm)
Valtteri Bottas topped the opening session at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, with lap times falling by over three seconds as the dusty track surface cleared.
"It was a tricky start to the day with low-grip conditions and the dusty track," said Bottas.
"This made it hard to get a proper read on the car but nevertheless, it felt not too far off how it should be, and that mean we could fine-tune things for FP2."
Hamilton made it a Mercedes one-two in the early running, but Verstappen was able find almost half a second on the Mercedes drivers to top Free Practice 2 with the fastest time of the day.
Max Verstappen set the fastest time on Friday in Mexico City. (Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool)
"It was quite a good day for us as a team," said Verstappen.
"Of course we are always trying to improve and make the car better but overall, it’s looking pretty good."
"It’s always difficult to know how we are going to perform in qualifying after Friday practice, and there are quite a few things to look at to improve performance."
"It’s been a positive start and we have a good feeling as a team heading into the weekend.”
Hamilton admitted that the short-run times may be a sign that Red Bull may have the upper hand heading into the weekend.
"The car's generally feeling okay and we've not had any major issues today," he said.
"We're giving it everything we've got and Red Bull are just a bit quicker than us right now."
Teams have had to adapt to the high altitude in Mexico City, which limits downforce.
Hamilton said that may be one reason Mercedes were slightly down on pace.
"We've been chipping away at the set-up and trying to improve it, but you can see we are lacking a bit of overall downforce here and that shows in the lap times."
"It was great to see lots of people came out today, and I'm looking forward to continuing the battle this weekend."
