‘Ferrari have the pieces, they just don’t put it together on the weekends’

With Danica Patrick declaring Ferrari are struggling to “put it together on the weekends” this season, Jenson Button has predicted Mercedes will beat Ferrari to the Mexican Grand Prix podium.

The win, though, will be Max Verstappen’s.

Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz surprised many in the paddock, Ferrari included when they locked out the front row of the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez ahead of Max Verstappen.

Off weeks are a ‘common theme’ at Ferrari

But while Ferrari may have had the pace on Saturday, IndyCar race winner Patrick has cast doubt over whether they can pull off a win on Sunday, or even complete the podium with Verstappen still the favourite to claim the victory.

“I feel like they really have the pieces, they just don’t put it together on the weekends,” said the Sky Sports pundit.

“They have a lot of inconsistency with race calls, there are mistakes and I don’t know if we can call Carlos’ hydraulic issue part of that or not, but look at the end of the day, it just really has been not a very clean season for them.

“And it’s Formula One, it’s ultra-competitive. You have to be putting it together just about every weekend. Yes, you can have an off weekend but it’s a common theme with them that they just don’t put it all together.”

But even if Ferrari manage to pull off a flawless race, Jenson Button isn’t sure they have the pace to stay at the front.

“They’re taking it race by race and want to get the best results they can,” he said.

“Practice wasn’t great, and it wasn’t because of a lack of speed. We actually don’t know if they were quick or not because both of them got their laps destroyed really by slower cars on track in the same corner, actually, out back in one of the high-speed corners left, right.

“And one of them Carlos ended up spinning off trying to turn a miss the car and Charles lost a heap of time so backed out of it.

“So we don’t know what their true pace is. I think they’ll be much more competitive than where they were in practice, but I’m not sure they’re in that first group of cars. I’m not sure.”

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It has the 2009 World Champion suggesting it will be Mercedes, not Ferrari, who join Red Bull on the Mexican GP podium.

“I think it’s still the podium,” he said of Mercedes’ goal for Sunday. “I think to beat Max and Red Bull if they do everything correctly as they’ve done every single race up until this point, they’re going to be very difficult to beat.

“It’s gonna be interesting at the start with the two Ferraris. They can block Max in and it makes the race a little bit more difficult for him, but he still stays the favourite.

“But I think Mercedes can fight for a podium. I think it will be them and I would put them on the podium rather than Ferrari in terms of… You look at the history over the last few races, they’re the stronger car at the moment.”

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