Friday was all about two things: the first reunion on track of Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen and heat. A lot of heat. Verstappen decided to change his gearbox and also drove with less power than he normally would.

This of course because of the fact that he rides with the power unit of Honda with which he had a crash two weeks ago. The power unit turned out to be undamaged and can be used this weekend.

Impact on performance and data

Where Mercedes could just go their own way in the heat and showed stability in the second free practice, this wasn't the case for Verstappen. The second free practice session in particular was not to Verstappen's liking.

Mercedes were clearly better during the long runs and already seem to have a good setup for the weekend, but as Mark Hughes amongst others noted: this data is not a good representation of what the weekend will be like and how big the differences really are. The main reason for this is the lack of full power from Verstappen's power unit.