Mercedes has work to do: 'Need to find time to Max on the single lap'

"We've had a reasonable day, the first session was a bit cleaner than the second but the car and power unit seemed to be coping well with the altitude. We've stayed very much focused on our own programme for single lap and long run", Shovlin begins in Mercedes' official press release.

According to the Mercedes engineer, Verstappen is definitely faster than the Mercedes and the team needs to work extra to find more speed. "It's clear there is a bit of time to find to Max on the single lap but we've got a few balance issues to fix so hopefully we can close that gap a little."

Good start for Mercedes

"The long run picture is a bit tricky because we were on different tyres to our competition but the balance is reasonable and the hard tyre seemed to be working nicely. We didn't come here expecting it to be easy and there is clearly a bit that we need to work on but compared to some of our Mexico Fridays, we've got off to a decent start", says Shovlin. Red Bull drove on the medium tyre, while Mercedes focused on the soft and hard tyres.