Mercedes should have company at the front when the weather changes

Mercedes led the way as usual in Friday practice. But an overnight change in weather conditions promises to be good news for their two closest rivals.

Air temperatures tomorrow will around 10C lower than today. Overcast conditions should also keep track temperatures well below the peak of 51C seen in today’s afternoon session.

Those lower temperatures should help those teams who had been quicker in the morning session. It will probably be bad news for Williams, who achieved rare levels of pace in the peak of the heat on Friday afternoon.

While Ferrari’s lap times were also quicker in the afternoon, note that they only used the soft tyres in the second session. As Mexico showed, the team tend to be weaker in hot conditions.

It’s striking also that Red Bull seemed a greater threat to Mercedes in the morning session. “We’re a bit closer to them than we probably expected, about half a second,” agreed Daniel Ricciardo.

The other change Red Bull are pinning their hopes on is wet conditions. “The rain will help us,” Ricciardo added, a sentiment his team mate echoed. At present the forecast is for rain showers throughout the next two days, with Sunday likely to be the wettest.

There were no surprises from the teams’ longest stints in the afternoon session. Mercedes did their longest runs on the soft tyres which appeared to hold up well for them, but less so for Red Bull.

Ferrari’s day was patchy. Kimi Raikkonen’s long run was spoiled when a discarded visor tear-off strip found its way into his brake duct, overheating the caliper.

Sebastian Vettel, meanwhile, found his car’s handling lively over a single lap and spun in the first session. However he reported the balance calmed down on a longer run

In the cool of the first session lap times quickly got within six-tenths of last year’s pole position time, and two seconds off the 2004 track record. The track remains unchanged since last year, save for a slight easing of the kerbs which were installed last season and turns two, three, four, eight and ten.

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

Pos	Driver	Car	FP1	FP2	Total laps
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1’11.895	1’12.271	73
2	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-TAG Heuer	1’11.991	1’12.928	74
3	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1’12.125	1’12.301	66
4	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull-TAG Heuer	1’12.371	1’12.828	70
5	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	1’13.129	1’12.761	83
6	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	1’13.318	1’12.789	76
7	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1’13.567	1’13.002	69
8	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1’13.569	1’13.047	50
9	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	1’13.289	1’13.918	69
10	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1’13.293	1’13.299	75
11	Jenson Button	McLaren-Honda	1’14.252	1’13.440	46
12	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda	1’14.296	1’13.572	44
13	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1’14.090	1’13.689	61
14	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1’13.711	1’13.801	69
15	Romain Grosjean	Haas-Ferrari	1’14.507	1’14.074	60
16	Kevin Magnussen	Renault		1’14.109	47
17	Felipe Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari	1’14.631	1’14.309	61
18	Esteban Ocon	Manor-Mercedes	1’14.827	1’14.317	76
19	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1’14.908	1’14.436	75
20	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas-Ferrari		1’14.558	42
21	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber-Ferrari	1’14.654	1’14.695	44
22	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor-Mercedes	1’14.948	1’14.958	54
23	Charles Leclerc	Haas-Ferrari	1’15.391		27
24	Sergey Sirotkin	Renault	1’15.800		10

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