Russell’s performance came as Mercedes introduced their first significant upgrades of the season, which they started with a car that was close to a second off the pace. The upgrade on the car is a lower-drag rear wing, as well as a revised front wing. The upgrade appears to have worked, but at the same time this is a lower-downforce track that might have helped their car’s characteristics and the hot temperatures in Miami could have alleviated their problems with getting temperature into their tyres on a first flying lap – which has been a problem all season, but was not on Friday. His car looked less stable out on track and he was slower than Russell all day, ending it 0.241 secs behind his team-mate.

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