Hamilton upbeat on Ferrari pace in Mexico despite FP2 setback

Lewis Hamilton was left frustrated by a technical gremlin that brought his second practice at the Mexico City Grand Prix to an abrupt end on Friday, robbing the Ferrari driver of valuable track time just as he was beginning to feel comfortable with his SF-26.

There was a particularly bitter twist for the seven-time world champion: he believed Ferrari had arrived in Mexico with a genuinely competitive package, only for a power-related problem to interrupt his progress and leave him with plenty of unanswered questions heading into Saturday.

Hamilton had already lost some running time in FP1, with Ferrari opting to conduct aerodynamic rake testing on his car rather than hand the session to a rookie driver, as most of their rivals had done.

His afternoon was therefore supposed to provide the opportunity to make up ground and explore the car's potential.

Instead, an apparent power issue forced him to pull over, cutting short his programme and leaving him classified 11th, despite having shown considerably more promising pace earlier in the session, and with teammate Charles Leclerc clocking in fastest.

Hamilton frustrated as Ferrari investigates

The Briton made little effort to hide his disappointment afterwards, particularly given how encouraging the car had felt before the problem struck.

“I was feeling really good in the car – it’s just my luck. I think we did a really good job in getting the set-up in a better place. Just really unfortunate,” he said.

“I think we’re really competitive this weekend as a team. I didn’t get to do the long runs so I have no idea, but I know it’s really hard to overtake here, as you saw with some people out there. They’re still investigating to find out what was wrong, and just praying that everything’s okay.

“I missed a little bit of time in FP1 because we did the rake running. Normally I would have one of the young drivers do FP1 at this track like most people did, but I opted to do it somewhere else.

“Basically I’ve only really had one session because I missed at least half of that session. I don’t think we need to make many changes to the set-up. I’d probably leave it much the same because we were very quick.

“I think I already had a loss of power earlier on in the lap and was still quick. I’ll give it everything tomorrow and just try to do the best with whatever I have.”

There was at least some encouragement in Hamilton's assessment of the underlying pace.

Even with the suspected power deficit, he felt Ferrari had sufficient speed to be in the mix, although the lack of long-run data leaves an important gap in the team's understanding of its race prospects.

Vasseur encouraged but warns of tight margins

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur was left to oversee the investigation into Hamilton's car, with the Scuderia facing a decision on the necessary corrective measures before the final practice session and qualifying.

“We'll take a decision tonight,” Vasseur said, while expressing satisfaction with the team's overall performance.

Charles Leclerc had dominated Friday's opening session before finishing just 0.103s clear of his nearest challenger in FP2. The narrowing margin offered a reminder that Ferrari's early advantage could quickly disappear as rivals found their feet.

“It's very early stages,” Vasseur added. “You know that Mexico is a challenge – it is a challenge with the altitude and for the car, for the drivers to find the limit.

“It is like it is – it's the same for everybody and we have to do a lot of work tonight to improve the situation.

• Mexico City Grand Prix Free Practice 2 - Results

“The pace was there from this morning. From the first lap the pace was there on the long stint, on one lap, and it means that we have to finetune. We still have a lot of work to do on the set-up and on the car because it's quite extreme conditions.

“You know that each weekend the competition is mega tight. Last year you had half a tenth between P2 and P6 and you can move from hero to zero. Let's be focused on ourselves, don't think about classification and try to do the best from what we have.”

For Hamilton, the immediate priority is considerably more straightforward: getting his Ferrari back into full working order. Having lost precious preparation time on Friday, he cannot afford another setback when the competitive running resumes.

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via X and Facebook