It was a challenging day for Ferrari on Friday in practice for the 2021 Mexico City Grand Prix, but despite some setbacks for the team there was still much reason for optimism according to Charles Leclerc.
The Monegasque suffered a spin in FP1 and damaged his rear wing, but still completed 20 laps and was ninth quickest by the chequered flag. He improved to seventh with a further 28 laps in the books after the break.
"Our sessions today were quite different," he said after the end of the day's track activity at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.
"In the morning there was a lot of dust on the track, which made it quite slippery and tricky to drive - especially in terms of braking," he explained. "The track evolution was significant between FP1 and FP2.
"Lap after lap you could feel that you are getting faster. It’s still difficult to compare ourselves to the others and understand exactly where we are.
"Tomorrow, we just have to focus on putting together the best lap we can and then I am confident that we have the potential to do a good job this weekend."
His team mate Carlos Sainz was fifth quickest in the morning and just one place back in the afternoon, giving the Spaniard a good feeling heading into the all-important Saturday qualifying session.
©Ferrari
"A challenging Friday as always here in Mexico, where the lack of grip affects the behaviour of the car a lot," he said.
"We tried some changes from FP1 to FP2 which didn’t seem to work, so we came back to this morning’s set-up during the session to try and replicate the balance I had in FP1 when I was happier with it.
"[On Saturday] we’ll try other alternatives to see if we can keep finding lap time and improve the overall performance of the car. Some of our competitors look very quick, so it’s going to be a tight fight."
Ferrari's main aim is to overtake McLaren for third place in the constructors standings. The two teams are now separated by just three and a half points with five races remaining in the 2021 championship.
The team could also play a key role in deciding the overall team and driver titles if they're able to catch Mercedes this weekend and deprive the reigning champions of crucial points in the knife edge battle with Red Bull.
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