There’s responsiveness and there’s balance, and on the limit they are not always the easiest of things to combine – especially when the corners are long or the track grip is low. Or both – which is exactly what we had in the early stages of Friday practice through the Esses of Mexico’s Hermanos RodrÍguez circuit. This interlinked series of sweeps – from turn 8 through to 11 – build speed, each turn quicker than the previous, with a punctuation of the slightly slower turn 10. The session begins on intermediates but soon enough everyone is on slicks but still there’s not much grip to be had.

The Mercedes look incredibly demanding, fast but so twitchy. Valtteri Bottas is the first to really attack the sequence and the silver car has a great initial rotation – that part between him first turning the car and it taking a definitive set into the turn – but the rear then keeps sliding. On a grippier surface, it would rotate and then grip. But not today, the Merc getting a wild-looking oversteer twitch on the exit of 10 and then clattering hard over the kerbs of 11, Bottas dominating the machine. The opposite shortfall is that of the Ferrari – which looks too stable. The air is thin at this altitude and the SF90’s underlying understeer seems to have resurfaced as the front wing cannot generate its usual grip. It takes longer to take a proper look at the corner but once it does, it gives its drivers an easier ride. But neither of the year’s top two cars are happy here.