The early verdict on Ferrari's Italian GP engine upgrade

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur always downplays the impact of specific upgrade packages, so by his standards his verdict after the debut of the upgraded Formula 1 power unit was encouraging despite confirming it's still at a deficit on power.

With Charles Leclerc second fastest in FP2, 0.120s slower than pacesetting Mercedes driver George Russell, and showing promising long-run pace, there was nothing on Friday to suggest that Ferrari had taken a giant leap to the front. What there was is proof of gains with the second engine upgrade introduced under the FIA’s Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities (ADUO) regulations, the first having arrived in Austria in late June.

"You have to keep in mind the performance in the straight line is the drag, the weight of the car, it's everything, it's not just the engine," said Vasseur. "We did a step for sure, and we didn't bring ADUO 2 for nothing, but I think we still have a decent gap."

What Lewis Hamilton calls a "considerable" deficit to Mercedes was evident on the straights. Comparing Leclerc's fastest FP2 lap to Russell's, there is a clear pattern of the Ferrari losing ground on the straights but making gains on the brakes and through the corners.

He loses around six tenths in the first two-thirds of the lap before clawing back a couple of those on the final straight, with Russell suffering more clipping on the run to Parabolica. In line with the comments of many teams and drivers, there's still plenty of room for optimisation of the harvesting and deployment strategies on this energy-starved track.

While Hamilton complained about the balance that made it "really hard to pull the lap out of the car" and "not an easy one to drive" after some set-up changes in FP2, he was hopeful that there are gains to come both in terms of set-up and the energy management.

"That's what we need to look into, if it's that [or] if it's the deployment," said Hamilton when asked if there could be gains in trimming back the downforce and therefore drag.

"But the engine is an improvement, which I'm really grateful for the guys back at the factory for working on. But our deployment schedule is different to the others, our competitors. It seems like they maybe have less drag for the straights, so that's something we need to definitely look at."

Hamilton also described the engine as "really nice to drive in the low speed". But it was Leclerc who led the way for Ferrari not only on single-lap pace but the long runs.

His long run was just three hundredths a lap on average off Kimi Antonelli's, albeit with the significant caveat that Leclerc was on the softs and the Mercedes on the hards. Despite that offset, that potentially puts Ferrari as the closest challenger, albeit with most expecting Mercedes to have the edge depending on how overnight changes shift the balance of power.

The wildcard in this is Red Bull, with Max Verstappen complaining of balance problems and playing catch-up after sitting out FP1 to allow Ayumu Iwasa to run.

"Clearly we have a balance issue on the car," said Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache. "A little bit like Zandvoort, to be honest, and we try to understand what the issue is, try to fix it in a different way by setup and car components.

"It's the main thing we are working on. What doesn't help is when Max didn’t drive during FP1 and he jumped in the car there, we have less time to react and now we have to react for FP3."

And yet, in the other Red Bull, Liam Lawson - whose preparation was complicated by having to put in the pre-weekend legwork both for his current team and Racing Bulls amid uncertainty about Isack Hadjar's fitness - produced an impressively quick and consistent hard stint that matched Antonelli's. However, both Leclerc and Antonelli encountered traffic during their stint, potentially slightly flattering Red Bull.

As for McLaren, Lando Norris was 0.443s off on the long runs, with his completed on hards, and only a little closer at 0.384s off on overall pace on a day he called "much trickier than the last few Fridays".

"It's a bit everywhere, honestly," said Norris, winner of the previous two grands prix, of the time loss. "There's not one corner we're quicker than anyone else ahead of us.

"We're losing a bit in the straights compared to Mercedes, which we kind of expect, but also the high speed is where we lose most of our laptime, which is normally where we're quick. So we have to try and figure out a few things, but we're just off the pace everywhere at the minute."

In the midfield battle, Arvid Lindblad led the way on a strong day for Racing Bulls, but unusually with Haas's Ollie Bearman just 0.021s behind. The Haas pace slipped behind Racing Bulls and Alpine (with Franco Colapinto delighted with the car in FP1 but finding the car "disconnected" in FP2) on the long runs, but this was nonetheless encouraging.

Both Haas VF-26s are running a major aerodynamic upgrade, but only Bearman has the upgraded Ferrari engine (Haas just has one available this weekend), with team principal Ayao Komatsu confirming "it's delivering in terms of characteristics". That's encouraging for a team that has not scored in the last six events, but less positive is the ongoing "inconsistency issues" that have hit both cars at times recently with Esteban Ocon having problems.

Audi, which introduced no aerodynamic upgrades on Friday but played the joker allowing changes to the homologated gear ratios/final drive, struggled compared to the midfield leaders a little more than expected, with an improvement expected on Saturday. That left it only just ahead of on single-lap pace, and a fraction behind on long-run pace, Carlos Sainz's soft-shod Williams, which had an experimental Friday while making the most of its time before the major upgrade due in Azerbaijan later this month.

At the back, an intriguing early-season subplot returned with Aston Martin struggling as anticipated despite the introduction of the upgraded Honda engine at Zandvoort two weeks ago.

There were at least driveability improvements as hoped, something Lance Stroll described as "a little bit better", but the fact that Valtteri Bottas reckoned Cadillac "have the upper hand on the straights" means a repeat of Fernando Alonso's Zandvoort points-scoring heroics seems unlikely.