He worked on Red Bull’s practice starts again on Friday – expect to see him doing a few more on his pre-race reconnaissance runs on Sunday.
The first driver will have the opportunity to get ahead by running the new tyres first and ‘undercutting’ Verstappen; the other will be well-placed in the event of a Safety Car or Virtual Safety Car, and might even be able to attack harder later in the race with the benefit of fresher tyres.
But this, of course, assumes Mercedes will be quick enough over a race stint to keep up with Verstappen.

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