Lewis Hamilton and his Mercedes team mate Valtteri Bottas might have been quickest in first practice at Mexico City, but the tables were turned in the afternoon with Red Bull's Max Verstappen taking change with a hald second advantage in FP2.
Hamilton acknowledged that the gap in performance was real, and that Red Bull simply had the fastest car again this weekend.
"We’re giving it absolutely everything we’ve got, it’s just that they’re quicker than us at the moment," he told the media in parc ferme after the end of Friday's sessions.
“The car is generally feeling okay, we’ve not really had any major issues,” he added, confirming that Mercedes hadn't experienced any problems that could account for the mismatch at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. “We’ve got no real concerns."
Unfortunately that means there is unlikely to be any 'magic bullet' for the team to hut down to put them back on a level footing with Red Bull.
"Just chipping away at our setup and trying to improve it," Hamilton said of their plans. "But we’re lacking downforce which is probably why we had that half a second difference between us.”
Hamilton comes into this weekend with a 12 point deficit to Verstappen in the drivers championship with just five races remaining, meaning his hopes of claiming a record eighth title this year are starting to slip away.
Mercedes is in a slightly stronger position in the constructors battle, with a 23 point lead over Red Bull in the team standings.
Bottas was quickest in the first practice but dropped to second in the afternoon. He said that the change in track conditions between the two sessions had been a factor.
"Starting the day, it was quite tricky with the low grip, it was quite a dusty track," he explained. "It’s why it was difficult to get a proper read of how the car really is
"I thought it was not far off from what it should be and we could fine tune it for FP2 and it didn’t feel too bad.
"But there’s still definitively lap time we need to find because Red Bull seems to be quick," he added, echoing his team mate's sentiments. "They definitively seemed quicker today, at least on the single lap.
"They have really strong pace on the soft tyre, so we need to find a bit of lap time if we want to fight for the pole."
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