George Russell hailed Friday as “one of our best” this season after setting the fastest time in Mexican Grand Prix practice.
The Briton was the only driver to go sub 1m20s around the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, but benefitted from running the 2022 tyres in the cooler temperatures of FP2, while his main rivals all completed 2023 tyre testing.
Even so, Russell was still delighted with his session, though highlighted the many pitfalls that await at the highest altitude circuit on the calendar.
“It’s probably one of, if not our best Friday of the year,” he declared. “The pace was relatively strong, but we know the challenges at this circuit.
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“For qualifying, the difficulty will be to get the tyres in the right window for the single-lap run. And on Sunday, it will be difficult to manage temperatures for the engine and for the brakes.”
After watching teammate Lewis Hamilton come close to victory last Sunday in Austin, Russell also laid out Mercedes’ goal for Mexico City.
“I’d like to think a podium is definitely possible,” he said. “Between the two of us, we’ve got 14 podiums, so that’s absolutely what we’ll be going for.
“But not having the normal FP2 running where you get to understand the long run [and] the consecutive laps of your rivals, it’s going to be difficult to know.
“It’s not going to be a straightforward weekend for sure, but positive learnings for us today.”
As for Hamilton, he was the fastest of those solely running the 2023 tyres during FP2, and finished less than two-tenths off the pace in Practice 1.
“I feel good,” he said. “I feel really, really good. I generally had a really good session today.
“I really enjoyed driving around the track. The car is feeling better and better as we work more through it, and we understand it more.
“We had the tyre test at the end [which] was just reconnaissance laps, like practice, practice, practice,” he noted. “So I don’t know where we stand compared to the others, because everyone is on different programmes.
“Obviously George was on a different programme because he missed FP1, but I just focused on mine and it feels good.”
But given how unpredictable the Mercedes W13 has been throughout 2022, the seven-time world champion admits nothing can be taken for granted.
“I have no idea,” he said on his victory chances. “You never know with this car. Tomorrow morning it could slap me in the face and not be happy, but I hope that’s not the case.
“Of course, we will do plenty of work tonight to see if we can etch ourselves a little bit further forward,” he pledged.