MEXICO CITY GP – Carlos Sainz leads a Ferrari one-two in first practice going four hundredths ahead of Charles Leclerc
Carlos Sainz led a Ferrari one-two in first practice for the Mexico City Grand Prix after going four hundredths faster than teammate Charles Leclerc. The two Ferrari drivers lead the session, despite Sainz setting his fastest time on the slower hard tyre he still managed to top the times.
The two Red Bulls were a tenth behind Sainz, both drivers setting identical lap times with Sergio Perez ahead of Max Verstappen having set his lap before the two-time champion. Lewis Hamilton put his Mercedes fifth going two hundredths behind Verstappen.
Red Bull have continued to dominate the debate of track following their breech of last year’s cost cap, ahead of practice the FIA announced the team had fined $7m and will face additional restrictions on wind tunnel time next year. Verstappen also had a spin through the Esses and kept it out the wall to go fourth.
Fernando Alonso put his Alpine fifth fastest nearly two-tenths ahead of Valtteri Bottas. Lando Norris was eighth, going ahead of Pierre Gasly and Sebastian Vettel, who rounded out the top ten. There were several young drivers in action during the hour session.
The Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez will evolve throughout the weekend because of the circuit being used little through out the year, and FP2 being a ninety-minute session to allow for tyre testing.
Daniel Ricciardo put his McLaren eleventh fastest going ahead of Guanyu Zhou by six hundredths. However, Zhou’s session was brought to an early conclusion when he had to stop the Alfa Romeo at the end of the pit lane, that was to prevent overheating following a upshift issue.
Lance Stroll was four hundredths further behind after going nearly a tenth faster than Mick Schumacher. Nicolas Latifi was fifteenth nine and a half tenths behind Schumacher and ahead of Liam Lawson by nine-tenths. The Alpha Tauri driver brought the session to an early end following a failure in the Fol Sol stadium.
As a result of his pulling over to deprive the AT03 of cool air, the brakes that the Kiwi had complained of throughout the session caught fire which brought out the red flags with minutes to go. Reliability issues at this stage in the season are common in practice as teams try to use power units with less life.
Lawson, however lead the five young/rookie drivers, after going nearly four tenths ahead of 2023 Williams driver Logan Sargeant. Sargeant going a quarter of a second ahead of Nyck De Vires, the Dutchman and 2020-21 Formula E champion a quarter of a second ahead of Jack Doohan. The Australian was however hampered by power unit issues, but was two seconds faster than Pietro Fittipaldi rounded out the field in the Haas.