Mark Hughes: What we learned from F1's most secretive 2024 session

The extended FP2 session was a tyre test for the ’25-spec F1 Pirellis. Everyone had to do a specified run plan as laid out by Pirelli, with back-to-back push laps on a control tyre and a ’25 equivalent (with 20kg of fuel on board), followed by back-to-back 10-lap long-runs, with 100kg on board, also with a control and ’25-spec comparison.

The only drivers free to run part of their standard allocation for this race were those whose car had been used in FP1 by third drivers – but only after they too had completed their Pirelli tasks.

But by the time those five drivers - Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Lando Norris and Zhou Guanyu - got through their Pirelli programme there was barely any time left, partly on account of a lengthy red flag period after George Russell hit the Turn 9 barriers hard. 

No set-up work could be made as the Pirelli programme was run. So what we are seeing on these tyres is likely to be subject to change when things get underway proper in FP3. 

Not all teams ran with the same compounds – and both RB and Aston Martin ran with the experimental soft C6, softer than the current C5. The placing of Yuki Tsunoda’s RB in P3 on the fastest times list is almost certainly partly influenced by this.

Ferrari and Mercedes ran the experimental version of the C4, with McLaren on the C5. As such, Carlos Sainz’s fastest time, ahead of the softer-tyred McLaren of Oscar Piastri, looks very encouraging for Ferrari.

Charles Leclerc got a late start, his car having been damaged in FP1 in the Oliver Bearman/Alex Albon collision. He was only able to get out after the red flag stoppage and didn’t even get to complete a timed lap on the standard tyre at the end. 

Yet even so, he was only a couple of tenths adrift of Sainz on the experimental tyre comparison. What we do not know – because Pirelli does not wish to reveal it – is in which order the back-to-back with current tyres and ’25 tyres was done. With each team car doing the inverse of the other, we have no way of knowing if the fastest times were done on the old or new-spec. 

For any more meaningful running for this weekend, we can look to FP1, where a few teams managed to fit in a race stint simulation.

But not Max Verstappen. His Red Bull has been afflicted all day by an apparent power unit problem, possibly turbocharger-related. Max was complaining of unusual sounds, vibrations and a lack of power. He aborted his FP1 race simulation after three laps and didn’t record a single flying lap in FP2.   

With such a significant player out of the equation it’s difficult to know the significance of Sainz’s domination of the FP1 long run sims, all of them made on the medium tyre.

He averaged over 0.9s faster than Russell’s Mercedes, who in turn was 0.3s faster than Sergio Perez’s Red Bull, who averaged a further 0.3s faster than Piastri’s McLaren.

It’s a sparse picture, though, missing not only Verstappen for comparison but also those such as Leclerc, Norris and Hamilton whose cars were being used by the third drivers.

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But in the FP2 long runs we can at least know that all the cars were running on the same fuel loads – as it had been specified by Pirelli.

For what it’s worth, these runs also suggested Ferrari had a big advantage (with the same proviso of no Verstappen). They were significantly faster than the McLarens despite being one step harder on compounds (C4 vs C5).

But it would be expected that the C4 would be a better race stint tyre than the C5 – so the picture is perhaps not accurate. But on the numbers, it’s Ferrari – as detailed below.

FP2 test tyre long run comparison (average times)

Mercedes is something of an outlier, with Russell having headed the FP1 times, a full 0.4s ahead of Sainz.

Was Mercedes again caught out by running so close to the ground, as the team believed happened in Austin? Certainly Russell’s car looked pretty much uncontrollable once he’d taken the Turn 9 kerb as hard as he did.

As for Hamilton, he reckoned, “It didn’t feel terrible, just a little bit off the front cars.”

Provisionally more than ever, it’s looking good for Ferrari – but it will be looking over its shoulder wondering about what McLaren could do on the same tyre – and what Verstappen and Red Bull might have in store if it can fix, rather than replace, the power unit.