Another false dawn or a real chance for Ferrari?

Another false dawn, or the real deal? That's the question from all Formula 1 fans hoping for a change of the stuck record of Mercedes supremacy that the 2019 season has offered so far.

The form book would suggest the Canadian Grand Prix second practice result is just an illusory oasis in a silver desert, but there are reasons at least to hope Ferrari can make a fight of it in Montreal.

Despite Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel being first and second in Friday afternoon's session, the gap to Mercedes isn't big. Valtteri Bottas, the only Mercedes driver to complete a qualifying simulation lap, was a mere 0.134 seconds off the pace.

Tellingly, he was two tenths of a second faster in the first sector than the Ferraris. That section includes the long Turn 1-2 complex and, compared to the rest of the track, it has a relative lack of straight blasts.

Conversely, Bottas was 0.232s down in the final sector, which comprises the hairpin, the final chicane and the long drag between the two.

Single-lap pace

1 Ferrari (Leclerc), 1m12.177s
2 Mercedes (Bottas), 1m12.311s
3 McLaren (Sainz), 1m12.553s
4 Haas (Magnussen), 1m12.935s
5 Racing Point (Perez), 1m13.003s
6 Renault (Ricciardo), 1m13.016s
7 Red Bull (Gasly), 1m13.345s
8 Toro Rosso (Albon), 1m13.436s
9 Alfa Romeo (Raikkonen), 1m13.542s
10 Williams (Russell), 1m15.036s

There are asterisks against the performance Mercedes demonstrated on Friday. Firstly, Lewis Hamilton slapped the wall with the right rear during his second run on his starting set of mediums and brought his session to a very premature end. This means we only have Bottas's pace to go on.

Secondly, Mercedes has introduced its phase two engine specification here. While we can safely assume there are gains with the new version, when such changes are made the engine is usually run a little more conservatively initially.

So we won't necessarily even have seen what might be termed the engine's 'normal' Friday level, let alone anything approaching what might be deployed come qualifying. A slightly bigger relative gain in engine modes could turn the tables immediately.

We know from Bahrain that Ferrari can be strong on circuits with straight blasts and big traction demands

This circuit is a battle between the time advantage on the straights of the Ferrari, which might easily be 0.7s or perhaps even a fraction more, and Mercedes in the corners. Most of the corners in Montreal are brisk chicanes, which the Mercedes carries good pace through thanks to riding the kerbs well. But it's not a circuit where the total time spent in the corners is high.

When it comes to Ferrari, time gained on the straights isn't only a function of engine power, it's also down to drag level and, often ignored, traction.

We know from Bahrain that Ferrari can be strong on circuits with straight blasts and big traction demands, so perhaps that supports the notion its Friday pace at least puts it in the hunt in Canada.

Perhaps the other weekend to compare this one to is Azerbaijan, where Ferrari looked strong until things unravelled in qualifying thanks to the descending temperature and Leclerc's Q2 crash.

In Baku Ferrari was clearly a pole position contender but ultimately fell short despite going on to show strong pace in the race.

As for the long-run data, it's patchy. The clearest conclusion we can draw is that anyone who can will be keen to avoid having to race on the softs, which are the Pirelli C5s this weekend - the softest in the range.

The degradation was high, although we can expect that to improve as the weekend progresses. Even so, if you can get through Q2 on mediums, that's the obvious move to try.

Mercedes topped the long-run table from McLaren, with Ferrari fourth and Red Bull down in sixth. This is based on runs of seven counting laps, where possible, but be wary of reading much into this.

Long-run pace - softs

1 Mercedes (Bottas), 1m17.293s
2 McLaren (Sainz), 1m17.673s
3 Renault (Hulkenberg), 1m17.696s
4 Ferrari (Vettel), 1m18.661s
5 Racing Point (Perez), 1m18.832s
6 Haas (Magnussen), 1m18.976s
7 Red Bull (Gasly), 1m19.037s - 6 laps
8 Alfa Romeo (Raikkonen), 1m19.108s
9 Toro Rosso (Kvyat), 1m19.289s - 5 laps

On the other compounds, Bottas completed a 16-lap run on hards running to the end of the session at an average pace of 1m17.257s - so slightly quicker than he managed on his blast on softs.

Red Bull driver Pierre Gasly did six laps on hards at 1m17.629s while the Ferraris focused on the mediums. Leclerc did the most relevant run on those tyres, with 12 counting laps at a 1m17.613s average.

The midfield team that stood out on single-lap and long-run pace was McLaren, not merely because Carlos Sainz Jr managed fourth fastest overall.

The McLaren upgrades include a new floor specification and Sainz was up there among leaders in the final sector. There, he clocked a time of 29.166s, a tenth off Leclerc but quicker than Bottas's 29.300s.

Crucially for McLaren, which already had a reasonably sharp at-track operation last year despite the technical limitations, this does appear to confirm that upgrades are delivering and being exploited performance-wise, which is hugely encouraging.

This makes McLaren the favourite in the midfield battle, although Haas - well, the car driven by Kevin Magnussen at least - looked strong. Romain Grosjean in the other car was struggling for rear grip and suffering from an inconsistent balance so lacked confidence to lean on the car.

Renault showed a reasonable turn of pace, although Daniel Ricciardo suggested the half-second it would need to get to the front of the fight for 'Class B' victory is unlikely to be found overnight.

But after two weekends of anonymity, Racing Point showed handy speed and Sergio Perez and even perma-Q1 faller Lance Stroll could be in the hunt to nick a Q3 place.

Up at the front, we can't definitively say Ferrari is in the box seat. But whatever happens, Ferrari must show it can at least follow through this weekend and avoid the mistakes and misjudgements that have cost it in recent events.

And as Mercedes technical director James Allison puts it, this was always a track where the champion team knew it could face a challenge. After what he described as a difficult first day, Mercedes knows that's potentially what it will get.

"I still believe Mercedes is very, very strong and I expect it to be very hard to beat them in qualifying" Sebastian Vettel

"We still managed to run all three tyres and get a feel for what they're going to be like in race conditions on a track which today was around about the sort of temperatures we can expect to see on Sunday," said Allison.

"We can see very clearly that the rear tyres are going to get pretty hot, but we saw some hope that we should be able to manage that and not let it run away from us.

"But we also saw in the single lap work that it is going to be a good old fight between us and Ferrari, who we have long feared at this track.

"So it's going to be an interesting fight tomorrow and again on Sunday."

As for pacesetter Leclerc, he said he still expects Mercedes to have the strongest car in Canada - while Vettel says there's still a lot of work to be done to have a shot at prevailing.

"I still believe Mercedes is very, very strong and I expect it to be very hard to beat them in qualifying," said Vettel.

"We need to work very hard. We did a good step in terms of performance from FP1 to FP2, the car felt better, but we should do another step to try to challenge Mercedes tomorrow."

Last year, Vettel described the Friday-to-Saturday step in terms of a miracle after winning the race, but in 2019 Ferrari hasn't been quite such a stellar improver.

Taking Friday at face value, you would say Ferrari does have a slight advantage. But factor in the patterns of the season and you would still have to back Mercedes.

Whatever the balance of power, it's essential that Ferrari gets the best out of its car on Saturday - whether that's for first or for third place. Too many times, it has not lived up to its potential.

This must not be another Azerbaijan for Ferrari.