Mercedes ended Friday on top thanks to George Russell’s surprise fastest time in FP2. But both Russell and team mate Lewis Hamilton played down the effects of the Silver Arrows’ extensive upgrade package for the Miami Grand Prix.
Russell finished second in FP1 behind Charles Leclerc, then backed that up with P1 in the following session – ahead of Leclerc – in a show of pace that got the paddock looking even closer at Mercedes’ upgrades for the weekend. Those upgrades include a new rear wing, front wing and beam wing.
Yet, the FP2 leader gave a pragmatic assessment of his team’s updates. He said: “We don’t really understand it to be honest, why we sort of hit the ground running.
“We always knew ahead of this weekend that the conditions should suit us better, because we’ve been struggling a lot with tyre warm-up, even in Bahrain when the track was really rough, but this is the first real hot race of the season, so for sure that’s played a big factor… but it’s only Friday, not getting too carried away.
“I’m not too sure [about the upgrades’ effect] to be honest because when I got out of FP1, I was straight into the stewards’ office because of the pit lane incident with [Esteban] Ocon and then straight into FP2, I was just working with my engineers to maximise my set-up and leaving it to the boffins to work out if this was the direction to go. But I think it’s definitely been a really productive day for us and probably the most productive Friday we’ve had.”