Mercedes openly accepted the presence of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell at the top of Friday’s Japanese Grand Prix practice time sheets was misleading.
Ahead of a weekend that could see Red Bull’s Max Verstappen clinch a second successive title in the drivers’ championship, it was the Mercedes pair who had the fastest cars on the track in wet conditions.
Their pace could to some extent be attributed to Mercedes’ decision to allow both to use new tyre sets, however, as other teams equipped their cars with used sets, giving the Silver Arrows an advantage.
Russell had been 18th quickest in first practice, and Hamilton 13th, but in the later session it was Russell who set the fastest lap of one minute and 41.935 seconds, with Hamilton just 0.235 seconds behind him.
Verstappen was third on the time sheets, some 0.851secs adrift, just ahead of his Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez.
Andrew Shovlin, the Mercedes track-side engineering director, said there were grounds for cautious optimism, while acknowledging the team had not suddenly taken a giant leap ahead of their rivals.
“The time sheets are not a fair reflection of pace as our times were set on new tyres,” Shovlin said. “But, like for like, we seemed to be in a reasonable position compared to Red Bull and Ferrari. We are expecting a dry qualifying session and most likely a dry race.”
🏁 FP2 CLASSIFICATION 🏁@MercedesAMGF1 take a one-two into Saturday 👀
Home hero @yukitsunoda07 completes the most laps 💪#JapaneseGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/GuH0SdKmFh
— Formula 1 (@F1) October 7, 2022
Ahead of Saturday’s qualifying, Hamilton said: “Looking to tomorrow, I don’t really know what to expect. I guess Ferrari and Red Bull will be rapid, and I hope that we are fast too – like I do each week!”
Russell said it was hard to predict how the Mercedes cars would contend over the weekend.
Quoted on the team’s website, Russell said: “It is always nice to end the day top of the time sheets, and it was a decent improvement from FP1 when we were pretty much at the bottom.
“The wet conditions today were probably not that representative for the rest of the weekend, but it was a good learning opportunity for the future; it’s important to understand things like the tyre crossover from wet to intermediate, and even if that doesn’t pay dividends this weekend, it will in the future.
“I’ve no idea what to expect tomorrow in the dry – we will be battling for the top six positions, and hopefully we have a shot at something better than that. Let’s wait and see.”
Source: Livescore