George Russell has labelled Ferrari as the biggest threat heading into the competitive sessions at the Mexico City Grand Prix.
The Italian squad ended both practice sessions on Friday on top of the timesheets with Charles Leclerc.
However, it had its shortcomings during the day as Lewis Hamilton missed out on some FP2 running when he was forced to pull over with an engine issue.
While Russell is considering Ferrari the favourite ahead of qualifying, the Briton suggested that it could be a session in which the driver makes the key difference.
"It's fair to say Ferrari is looking strongest at the moment," Russell said.
"Leclerc couldn't properly finish this lap, I don't think; Lewis had the issue.
"We expected on this sort of circuit for them to perform best. If you have a very good chassis, come Q3, I think it can go any way.
"As it stands it can go any way. So I need to pull the lap out when it matters."
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Russell explains unique Mexico F1 challenge
Russell had just 60 minutes of running on Friday as he sat out the FP1 session for rookie driver Fred Vesti.
After returning to the cockpit in FP2, Russell enjoyed a positive outing to end up in third place, just one-tenth down on Leclerc.
The teams and drivers are having to deal with an additional challenge in Mexico, with the high altitude and low air density creating a unique environment.
Explaining how it impacts the cars, Russell said: "Always coming to Mexico, there are challenges with the altitude.
"One big difference this year is the majority of teams have been running high downforce at all of the tracks because we've got the SM that opens on the rear and the front on all of the straights.
"What that means is usually when we come to Mexico, we go to our max downforce from medium or low downforce.
"Whereas this year, we've always been on our max downforce. So coming to Mexico, it's even lower grip than we're used to.
"Turbo lag is an issue, but it's very tight out there between the top four teams."
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