Why Red Bull might regret setting the Friday pace

How the tables have turned. Last weekend, Max Verstappen and Red Bull-Honda were well off the pace in Singapore, but during Friday practice at Sochi emerged from the opening day of practice fastest by a third of a second from Ferrari.

Perhaps Red Bull really is quick enough to regret introducing new Honda V6s across all four of its cars this weekend, with the resulting five-place grid penalty that means Verstappen can't start from pole no matter how fast he might be. But despite Ferrari emerging from Friday's running very much second-best, there's also reasons for the reds to be optimistic.

At the equivalent juncture last weekend, Red Bull looked in good shape given Verstappen lapped within a couple of tenths of the pace with more seemingly on the table. This inevitably raises the question of whether the same pattern might repeat itself, although it does seem that the car's performance over the bumps was one of the limiting factors in Singapore. Hardly a concern at billiard-table smooth Sochi, where Verstappen appeared to get the car loaded up exactly as he wanted at turn-in for slower corners.

Verstappen was certainly upbeat after a more promising start here that suggested last weekend's form will not carry over.

"It was a bit of a weird weekend in Singapore, what went wrong," said Verstappen shortly after getting out of the car at the end of FP2. "So we came here and the car's working really well, especially the last sector has been very good.

"But even the first one, you have a long straight, Turn 3 is flat out so is basically also a straight, and we are still very competitive. So it was a positive day, we tried quite a few things with the car and it seemed to work."

Not just very competitive, for Verstappen was actually fastest of all in the first sector with a best time of 33.916s - half a tenth faster than next-best Charles Leclerc in a Ferrari that usually sets the pace in such a full-throttle-dependent chunk of track.

"It felt good and I had fun, but obviously we need to find some gains if we're going to fight for pole" Valtteri Bottas

That Verstappen felt there was a little more time to come in the final sector despite being quicker than anyone through the twistiest piece of track - Hamilton was next-best and 0.073s slower - is hugely encouraging for the Red Bull team. Overall, that added up to an advantage of more than three tenths over Ferrari and six and a half tenths over Mercedes.

Red Bull can also take a boost that its junior team, also with Honda propulsion, was rapid and Pierre Gasly led the midfield - albeit a pack that was very congested at the front.

Single-lap pace

1 Red Bull (Verstappen), 1m33.162s
2 Ferrari (Leclerc), 1m33.497s
3 Mercedes (Bottas), 1m33.808s
4 Toro Rosso (Gasly), 1m34.971s
5 Racing Point (Perez), 1m34.998s
6 Renault (Ricciardo), 1m35.026s
7 McLaren (Norris), 1m35.223s
8 Haas (Magnussen), 1m35.351s
9 Alfa Romeo (Raikkonen), 1m35.374s
10 Williams (Russell), 1m36.785s

Mercedes, on qualifying pace, currently looks behind the eight-ball. In Singapore, it struggled with its tyre-prep laps, which had to be significantly faster than that of its rivals, and there was experimentation again on Friday in terms of the number of preparation laps/cooldown laps its drivers completed.

"Red Bull and Ferrari [were] just a bit too quick," said Bottas, a driver who always flies at Sochi. "It felt good, there were no massive balance issues with the car, just maybe struggling a little bit with overall grip and sliding around. Apart from that, it felt good and I had fun, but obviously we need to find some gains if we're going to fight for the pole."

To support Bottas's claim that the car felt well-balanced and the suspicion that a single quick lap on softs is the problem, Mercedes looked the strongest on long runs using the medium tyre. With a pace delta of 0.6s between the softs (C4) and the mediums (C3), it's eminently possible that the leading teams could escape Q2 without using the softs and therefore could start on the mediums. That's hugely appealing given the durability of the two harder compounds.

But on the softs, it was actually Leclerc that set the most impressive pace on the long runs. The runs were relatively short, so it's risky to draw to many conclusions - especially with Ferrari so much quicker - and if the softs aren't used for Q2 it could be completely irrelevant.

Long-run pace (softs)

1 Ferrari (Leclerc), 1m38.699s (4 laps)
2 Red Bull (Verstappen), 1m39.821 (4 laps)
3 Mercedes (Bottas), 1m39.716s (3 laps)
4 Toro Rosso (Gasly), 1m40.161s (4 laps)
5 Racing Point (Perez), 1m40.400 9 laps)
6 Haas (Magnussen), 1m41.014s (10 laps)
7 Renault (Ricciardo), 1m41.134s (7 laps)
8 McLaren (Sainz), 1m41.515s (2 laps)
9 Alfa Romeo (Giovinazzi), 1m41.311s (7 laps)
10 Williams (Russell), 1m41.606s (3 laps)

While Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto is adamant that the Ferrari is not the quickest car - which seems fair based on the evidence despite the determination of everyone on Friday to deny having a pace advantage even when they do have one - he is now much more confident that the Singapore upgrades represented a genuine, sustainable improvement.

"I don't think we've been the fastest today, but certainly we were competitive and that was important for us," said Binotto. "It was important because it's true we did a fantastic qualifying in Singapore with the new aero package.

"It was important to confirm how good was the package coming here [compared] to Singapore, different types of tracks and set-ups. We've been fast, competitive on the high-fuel runs, so in general quite happy for today."

"We're quite clearly a little bit out of step with the other teams in terms of our first lap performance on a track where we've traditionally found it a bit difficult to get the front tyres to the temperature we need them" Mercedes technical director James Allison

But the medium-tyre long-run pace is potentially more interesting, with Mercedes leading the way. This raises the tantalising possibility of, for the third race in succession, Mercedes having the faster car in the race and chasing Ferrari - remembering, of course, that the Red Bulls are unlikely to start higher than sixth.

Long-run pace (mediums)

1 Mercedes (Hamilton), 1m38.933 (5 laps)
2 Red Bull (Verstappen), 1m39.434s (3 laps)
3 Ferrari (Leclerc), 1m39.712s (7 laps)
4 Toro Rosso (Kvyat), 1m39.802s (5 laps)
5 Renault (Hulkenberg), 1m39.835s (6 laps)
6 Haas (Grosjean), 1m40.644s (5 laps)
7 McLaren (Norris), 1m40.924s (6 laps)
8 Alfa Romeo (Giovinazzi), 1m41.311s (5 laps)
9 Williams (Russell), 1m41.721s (16 laps)

No data for Racing Point

Leclerc made a conservative start to his long run that dragged his average down - in fact, the time goes up if you lop off the final four laps. There's also an asterisk against the pace of Verstappen given Hamilton's medium run came at the end of the session and Verstappen's was straight after the qualifying simulations - suggesting the Red Bull could have been heavier depending on the approach Mercedes took to the fuel load.

"We're quite clearly a little bit out of step with the other teams in terms of our first lap performance on a track where we've traditionally found it a bit difficult to get the front tyres to the temperature we need them," said Mercedes technical director James Allison. "But we made some decent learning steps during the day and if we carry on in that direction, then things should look brighter tomorrow.

"We're also quite reassured by the fact that on high fuel and when the first lap is taken out of the picture, the car looks swift and looks like it will be a good racing car."

In the midfield battle, Toro Rosso backed up its single-lap pace with good speed both on the softs and mediums on the long runs. Unfortunately, both Daniil Kvyat and Gasly carry five-place grid penalties into the race, which could open the door for Racing Point and, in particular, Sergio Perez.

With a major upgrade introduced last time out in Singapore, the team has worked hard to get on top of the set-up demands and Perez - who finished third here in 2016 - looked rapid. With McLaren appearing to struggle on these kinds of finely-grained asphalt surfaces, this means Racing Point could be on for its first 'class-winning' weekend since April's Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Unusually, though, it's the battle up front that has the potential to be very tightly-fought. As in Belgium, Italy and Singapore, the Mercedes should have the pace - certainly when not on the softs - to win but can it get the track position? If the softs continue to be a problem for a single lap, then we could see history repeated thanks to the fact that Red Bull's cars will be at the back of the lead group regardless of how quick they are on Saturday.