Vettel: No favorite after Friday running in Mexico

Sebastian Vettel insists there is no clear favorite out of the top three teams following Friday practice for the Mexican Grand Prix.

Ferrari was quick throughout both practice sessions, with Vettel topping FP2 ahead of Max Verstappen. With Red Bull also competitive in both sessions and Lewis Hamilton quickest in FP1 before Mercedes faded in the afternoon, Vettel says it’s not obvious which team has the upper hand ahead of qualifying.

“I don’t know, favorite is if you know for sure who is going to be in front or win,” Vettel said. “I don’t think anybody is a real favorite after today. Or you have all favorites!

“It will be very tight amongst all of us, all the three teams. We will see what the day brings tomorrow.”

Ferrari appeared to have a strength in terms of tire wear, with Vettel happy with the amount of degradation on his long run compared to his rivals.

“I don’t think you’ll ever be able to get a great feeling because the car is moving a lot," Vettel said. "But it was OK in the afternoon, I was able to find the rhythm and just chip away at it, so let’s see. We can still improve, I think it will be very, very tight tomorrow but that’s what we want.

“We split the work today and I had more job to be done on the medium but it was OK. I think we were not that bad compared to some other people. I didn’t have the full view yet but it looked OK. On the softs when I put on them they were fresh and I did just two laps so I didn’t have the worst tire today for the long run on the car.”

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While Vettel topped the afternoon session, it was Charles Leclerc who was the lead Ferrari in FP1 but the 22-year-old was not happy with how his day progressed.

“Today was quite a tricky day on my side,” Leclerc said. “FP1 was quite good, FP2 was very tricky. I struggled overall with the driving and the balance of the car and tomorrow I just need to come back stronger because FP2 was not as good as I wanted.”