'Weekend overall for us is a good one' – Vasseur offers verdict on Ferrari's Mexico City result

Ferrari Team Principal Fred Vasseur believes that the Mexico City Grand Prix "weekend overall for us is a good one", as Charles Leclerc claimed another podium and Lewis Hamilton showed strong pace.

Leclerc finished runner-up in Sunday's race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, having run alone for much of the 71-lap affair until the closing stages when a hard-charging Max Verstappen just failed to overtake.

Leclerc's podium was his second in succession and came after he and team mate Hamilton had qualified P2 and P3 on the grid, with both challenging eventual race winner Lando Norris into Turn 1.

"The weekend overall for us is a good one. We had a strong pace yesterday, we are not that far away to fight for the position, and P2-P3 was a good result," said Vasseur after Sunday's race.

"But I think Lando [Norris] showed on Friday afternoon that on the long stint he was on another planet, again, he did today. For sure that if you are not P1 in Turn 1, the race can be a bit different, because it's not easy to overtake."

Hamilton eventually slumped to eighth at the chequered flag having been handed a 10-second penalty for gaining a lasting advantage after cutting across Turn 4 in his battle with Verstappen.

Vasseur stated "this cost us for sure" and that "I don't remember when someone took 10 seconds" for a similar incident.

The unique setting of Mexico with its thin air, high altitude and bumpy surface challenged teams to compromise on a package which provided enough cooling and performance, something Ferrari had struggled to do in Singapore with Hamilton's brakes notably failing in the final laps.

Vasseur admitted that finding the balance proved tricky at a venue which still yields Ferrari's most recent win 12 months ago.

"It's very difficult to predict, because a large part of the performance is coming from cooling," said Vasseur.

"And to adapt the car to brakes, engine, and every single topic to the cooling, you have to predict how you will be in the race, will you be in traffic or not, and quite often we are letting a lot of performance for this.

"It's the only time in the season, the only one where we are running with so high level of cooling, in that we don't know where the others will be, depending on the weather. But overall, last year we did well, the year before also, but we were always there this weekend from the lap one."