While it appears to be business as usual, what with Max Verstappen on pole, with the next seven drivers covered by just 0.276s, the Dutchman looks to have a fight on his hands.
Motorsports Racing News & Blog Articles
Carlos Sainz set the pace in final practice session as the true pecking order remains a mystery.
As Lewis Hamilton claims to be surprised at his car's pace, world champion Max Verstappen suggests that all is not what it would appear to be.
Team representatives press conference with: Toto Wolff, Zak Brown), Frederic Vasseur and Laurent Mekies.
The long runs in FP2 were almost all done on the C3 and demonstrated that even the softest compound could be competitive over a long stint.
Overall, a productive first day of practice. We had no major issues and we got through our test programme.
Overall, it was still a productive day during which we completed all the testing we had on our programme.
We didn't quite get everything from the soft tyres today but we can improve that tomorrow. There is work to do but we have a solid platform to build on.
Patience is required and we'll try to make the best with the package we have in our hands right now.
It seems we are still quite close to our main competitors, and it'll likely come down to a handful of tenths in qualifying.
The things we learned through testing have been reflected today and it shows that we're in a better place, but we must make another step, so we're really focused on that.
It's very difficult to read our competitiveness for now but there were no big surprises.