Ferrari “will be a big threat” – Rosberg

For only the second time this year, Ferrari ended Friday practice with the fastest time.

The only other occasion that happened was in China, where they were kept off the front row by Daniel Ricciardo’s demon qualifying lap – and then the two red cars tangled at the first corner.

Sebastian Vettel was right to play down the implications of his quickest time – a mere four-thousandths of a second better than Lewis Hamilton managed – and not just for fear of raising hopes they could beat Mercedes. Ferrari has out-paced Red Bull more than not on Friday, a situation which is not reflected in the constructors’ championship standings.

But this did look like being a track where Ferrari might be strong. Engine power is a big part of the game at the Autodromo Hemanos Rodriguez, mid-to-high speed cornering much less so. Mercedes is known to have restricted its engine’s performance in the wake of Hamilton’s costly blow-up in Malaysia. Ferrari’s straight-line speeds were stronger at the last round, and here there are longer straights for them to play with.

What also hasn’t changed from last year is the lack of grip around the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, despite the facility having had some use in the intervening 12 months.

“I expected the grip to be higher after a year but it was still very slippery,” said Ricciardo. “By Sunday the last half of the race will be better but I think we’ll fight the balance from now until the end, trying to get comfortable with a slick-feeling track.”

While Vettel found good one-lap pace from the super-soft tyre it does not look a good prospect for the race. “The super soft today wasn’t a great tyre for the long runs as it wasn’t lasting,” said Ricciardo. “I don’t know how the others got on but I believe everyone has had a few problems with that compound.”

The picture of the driver’s race stint times (below) is further obscured by the high amount of traffic during the session and the fact several of them passed through the pits in a bid to find space.

“I felt that I was in Mexico city, not on the race track, with all the traffic,” said Vettel. “I think everybody was fighting with the same problems, trying to make the tyres last, especially the super softs.”

At present the default race strategy looks like a case of starting on the super-softs and progressing to the mediums. But watch out for warming track conditions making the soft tyre a viable option.

Championship leader Nico Rosberg said his team have “a lot of homework to do tonight” and is taking the Ferrari threat seriously.

“The car was feeling okay on the medium tyre but even there we need to make some progress to understand where we can find some performance. Ferrari seemed very quick here today, so they will be a big threat.”

Longest stint comparison – second practice

This chart shows all the drivers’ lap times (in seconds) during their longest unbroken stint. Very slow laps omitted. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan, right-click to reset:

Complete practice times

	Car	Driver	Car	Best lap	Gap	Stint lap	At time	Laps
1	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1’20.225		4/4	39	46
2	7	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1’20.259	0.034	2/3	32	37
3	33	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-TAG Heuer	1’20.619	0.394	2/4	35	42
4	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull-TAG Heuer	1’20.448	0.223	4/4	39	43
5	5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1’19.790	-0.435	2/3	27	47
6	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1’20.574	0.349	4/4	39	43
7	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1’19.794	-0.431	6/6	44	37
8	55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1’20.974	0.749	2/4	36	46
9	14	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda	1’21.003	0.778	2/2	47	25
10	26	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1’21.193	0.968	5/5	40	38
11	11	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	1’21.579	1.354	1/3	37	41
12	22	Jenson Button	McLaren-Honda	1’21.198	0.973	4/4	47	39
13	21	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas-Ferrari	1’22.408	2.183	1/4	35	33
14	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	1’21.326	1.101	1/3	35	45
15	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	1’20.629	0.404	3/3	41	41
16	20	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1’21.442	1.217	1/4	34	39
17	30	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1’21.785	1.560	3/3	37	44
18	12	Felipe Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari	1’22.037	1.812	6/6	44	43
19	8	Romain Grosjean	Haas-Ferrari	1’22.105	1.880	1/2	68	14
20	9	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber-Ferrari	1’21.997	1.772	5/5	40	41
21	94	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor-Mercedes	1’21.980	1.755	2/3	34	42
22	31	Esteban Ocon	Manor-Mercedes	1’22.298	2.073	3/3	42	44

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