Charles Leclerc was fastest in the first practice session for this weekend’s Mexico City Grand Prix, the Ferrari driver set an 18.380, which put him just over a tenth faster than Kimi Antonelli. The Ferrari driver set his fastest time just after the midway point through the session and then remained at the top of the times for the rest of the session.
However the session is slightly unrepresentative with several teams running rookies and much of the first half of the session at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, was spent on cleaning up the dust and several names missing including title contenders Max Verstappen and Lando Norris, as well as seven time champion Lewis Hamilton on the sidelines as the teams fulfilled the requirement to run rookies in four FP1 sessions.
Nico Hulkenberg once again showed that Sauber has pace as the German went third fastest, over a quarter of a second ahead of Oscar Piastri. The McLaren driver managed to split the two Sauber’s with Gabriel Bortoletto going over a tenth behind Piastri with Verstappen’s replacement, Arvid Livdbald, eighth hundredths further behind.
Piastri was the only one of the three title contenders on track for the weekend’s opening hour of running and will hope to have gained useful early data to carry into the rest of the weekend after a series of underwhelming races, which have seen his points lead dwindle.
Piastri, who has seen his title lead drop to fourteen points over Norris and forty points over a resurgent Verstappen, finished four tenths off Leclerc’s pace and had a late mini-slide on track when he switched to the soft tyres.
Everyone stayed clear of the walls throughout the session, though Franco Colapinto, Hadjar and Piastri did harmlessly end up off the track once each.
Sauber, the only team to run both race drivers, Bortoleto was regraded as a rookie when he took part in FP1 in Melbourne and Shanghai at the start of the season. Livdbald was eight hundredths behind the Brazilian as he went half a tenth ahead of Esteban Ocon.
Livdbald was best of the rookies in sixth, six tenths off the fastest time, in his second FP1 outing of the season as he was just under a tenth ahead of Yuki Tsunoda. As always, the usual caveats apply to practice and even more so when rookies are involved.
After the session, Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies told Sky Sports, “We took the decision to leave Arvid on low-ish fuel to not give him the complication of high and low fuel. He did a very good job. It’s so difficult to jump in. The pace is there, so not much to argue against that.”
The Haas driver half a tenth ahead of Tsunoda, who could be under pressure to remain in F1 from Livdbald and Isack Hadjar. The Japanese driver was nearly a quarter of a tenth faster than Colapinto, while Alex Albon half a tenth further behind as they completed the top ten. Hadjar missed out on the top ten by a quarter of a tenth.
Fernando Alonso put his Aston Martin twelfth as he was just over six hundredths behind the Racing Bulls, as he was a hundredth ahead of McLaren IndyCar driver Pato O’Ward, who stood in for Norris.
O’Ward led the rest of the field, which was made up of rookies; he was a hundredth ahead of Fred Vesti in the Mercedes with him almost a tenth and three-quarters ahead of the Alpine of Paul Aron.
Ryo Hirakawa replaced Ollie Bearman at Haas, despite it being Bearman’s first full season; his three starts last year made him ineligible as a rookie in Melbourne and Shanghai. Hirakawa was eight hundredths faster than his fellow Japanese driver, Ayumu Iwasa, was a tenth and a half ahead of Luka Browning.
Jak Crawford was nineteenth for Aston Martin as he was nearly half a second ahead of the Ferrari of Antonio Fuoco.
