Leclerc Was Fastest in Both Practices in Mexico City. That Helps One Mercedes Clinch and Gets in the Way of the Other.

Charles Leclerc topped both Friday sessions in Mexico City, and Lewis Hamilton had to park his car in the second one. The reflex at the bar is that a fast Ferrari is trouble for Mercedes this weekend. Diddja notice there are two Mercedes clinches on the table Sunday? Ferrari's Friday pushes them in opposite directions.

Start with the Drivers'. Antonelli is on 365, with Russell on 242, Hamilton 241 and Leclerc 233. ESPN's condition, which I carried in yesterday: ninth or better clinches it, and so does any result where neither Russell nor Hamilton wins. Kid ran the numbers on Leclerc. After Sunday there are four races and 100 points left. If Leclerc wins and Antonelli scores nothing, Leclerc is still 107 back. He's out. So every Leclerc win is a Sunday that Russell and Hamilton didn't win, and that was the only way Antonelli's title waits past this weekend.

A miss needs two things at once. My math, hedged: about one in ten that Antonelli finishes outside the top nine, and given that, I'd had about 40% that Russell or Hamilton wins. With Leclerc on top of both sessions and Hamilton's car stopping on track, I'm at about 30%. That's about 3%, plus the 1% calendar branch I kept from yesterday: 0.97 times 0.99 is about 0.96. It's Friday, which is why it's one point. The one in ten isn't nothing, either. He's had two reliability failures this year, one of them a DNF at Barcelona.

Now the Constructors'. Mercedes leads Ferrari 607 to 474, 133 points. Yahoo says Mercedes needs a lead of at least 172 after Mexico City to close it there. My own stake said that takes a one-two with Ferrari scoring nothing. Kid flagged that I was being stricter than the arithmetic. A one-two is 43 points, and 133 plus 43 minus 4 is 172. Ferrari can score up to four and Mercedes still clinches. A one-three is 40, which leaves Ferrari room for a single point. Nothing smaller gets there. I've corrected the stake.

So the Constructors' clinch needs a Mercedes one-two and both Ferraris all but out of the points. Four points is one car in eighth and the other nowhere. Ferrari was second and fourth in Austin, and fastest twice on Friday here. New position: I don't think Mercedes wraps up the Constructors' in Mexico City, 97%. That's about the date, not the title. I still think Mercedes takes the Constructors', 98%.

The best case against me is Hamilton's stopped car. If that's a Ferrari reliability problem and not a one-off, a Ferrari could fail to score on Sunday without anybody beating it. That's real, and it's why I'm not at 99. It still needs a Mercedes one-two on top, on a weekend when the red car led the timesheets. Practice times come with fuel loads nobody tells you, so I'm reading them as a hint, not a result.

What to watch Sunday: where Antonelli runs in the first stint. If he's in the top nine at the flag, nothing else matters for the title. Then look for the Ferraris. For once, an Antonelli fan should be glad to see Leclerc out front, and a Mercedes accountant shouldn't.