George Russell: “Today was one of our better Fridays, if not the best of the year so far”

George Russell felt Friday at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez was amongst the best Friday’s of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season, and it ended with him topping the time sheets.

The Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team racer sat out the opening session ahead of the Mexico City Grand Prix as the team gave Nyck de Vries his final opportunity to run before he moves to Scuderia AlphaTauri in 2023, but he made the most of the track time when he did get going.

Russell, one of only five drivers to be able to run 2022 tyres in the second session as the other fifteen prioritised the Pirelli tyre test, and he ended more than eight-tenths of a second clear of AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda.

Despite not knowing where they are compared to their rivals, Russell goes into the rest of the weekend with confidence and with one eye on a return to the podium places on Sunday afternoon.

“Today was one of our better Fridays, if not the best of the year so far – the car is working well and it felt good driving on this track,” said Russell.  “The pace was relatively strong, but we know the challenges at this circuit.

“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. A podium finish should hopefully be possible for us this weekend, so that’s what we will be aiming for.

“Not having the normal FP2 running, where we get to assess the long run performance of our rivals, doesn’t allow us to understand where our competitors are and that can become a big challenge if we will struggle with tyre temperatures during the race.

“We take some very useful learnings about tyre temperature management for next year and will be working hard overnight as it’s not going to be a straightforward weekend for sure, but positive learnings for us today.”

“The car is feeling better and better” – Lewis Hamilton

Team-mate Lewis Hamilton ended the afternoon session fourth fastest having also been inside the top five in the first, and he also feels confident about the performance of the W13 so far this weekend.

Hamilton has plenty of good memories of racing at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez having clinch World Championships at the circuit, and he has hopes of another positive weekend this time around as he looks to end his longest winless run of his Formula 1 career.

“I had a good session today, so generally feel good about our performance so far,” said Hamilton.  “I really enjoyed driving around the track, because the car is feeling better and better as we learn to understand it in more detail.

“Of course, we will do plenty of work tonight, to see if we can compete with the front, but you never know with this car how the rest of the weekend will go, but I hope we are able to continue to build on our positive conclusion from today.”

Looking at the tyre test he participated in during second practice, Hamilton says the new compounds, set to be introduced next season, appear to be more consistent over a long run and easier to manage.

“The tyre test in FP2 we used to get as much practice in as possible,” Hamilton added.  “I don’t know yet where exactly we stand compared to other teams, because everyone was running different programmes and I try to mainly focus on my own programme.

“The 2023 tyres seem very similar to the current ones, maybe a little bit more consistent on the long runs and easier to manage in terms of overheating.”

Lewis Hamilton has confidence of a strong weekend for Mercedes in Mexico – Credit: Wolfgang Wilhelm