F1 results: George Russell fastest in Mexican GP practice for Mercedes

Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz was fastest in FP1 before Russell topped FP2, which doubled as a 2023 Pirelli prototype tyre test and so was unrepresentative in the main.

But Russell set the time on 2022-spec soft tyres, as he didn’t run in FP1, so it was a competitively legitimate lap.

Mexican Grand Prix FP1 results: Sainz fastest from Leclerc

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	km/h
1	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	25	1'20.707			191.983
2	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	20	1'20.753	0.046	0.046	191.873
3	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	22	1'20.827	0.120	0.074	191.698
4	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	22	1'20.827	0.120	0.000	191.698
5	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	17	1'20.849	0.142	0.022	191.646
6	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	26	1'20.899	0.192	0.050	191.527
7	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	23	1'21.083	0.376	0.184	191.093
8	Lando Norris	McLaren	21	1'21.120	0.413	0.037	191.005
9	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	25	1'21.310	0.603	0.190	190.559
10	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	24	1'21.525	0.818	0.215	190.057
11	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	16	1'21.762	1.055	0.237	189.506
12	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo	20	1'21.820	1.113	0.058	189.371
13	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	24	1'21.865	1.158	0.045	189.267
14	Mick Schumacher	Haas	22	1'21.952	1.245	0.087	189.066
15	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	20	1'22.912	2.205	0.960	186.877
16	Liam Lawson	AlphaTauri	19	1'23.861	3.154	0.949	184.762
17	Logan Sargeant	Williams	22	1'24.246	3.539	0.385	183.918
18	Nyck de Vries	Mercedes	20	1'24.582	3.875	0.336	183.187
19	Jack Doohan	Alpine	13	1'24.615	3.908	0.033	183.116
20	Pietro Fittipaldi	Haas	9	1'26.766	6.059	2.151	178.576
View full results

What happened in Mexican GP Free Practice 1?

Two-time champion Max Verstappen set the early pace at 1m23.292s on hard tyres, six tenths clear of Red Bull stablemate, and local hero, Sergio Perez.

Verstappen lowered that to 1m22.779s before Perez briefly nicked P1 off him with 1m22.702s to the home crowd’s delight. Verstappen then worked down to 1m22.291s, 0.382s ahead of Perez. 

Sainz was best of the rest for Ferrari on the hards, half a second off, while teammate Charles Leclerc was first to run on softs. Leclerc duly leapt to the top with 1m21.546s, and then improved to 1m20.753s on his second push lap.

Verstappen was on course to beat Leclerc when he spun at the Esses, while Sainz did manage to pip his teammate with 1m20.707s, the fastest time of the session. Perez and Verstappen set exactly the same laptime on softs, 0.12s off the pace, with the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton in fifth, a further 0.02s in arrears, with another 0.05s back to Fernando Alonso’s Alpine. 

There were plenty of incidents: On a dusty track early on, Williams’ FP1 rookie Logan Sargeant ran wide on the entry to the Foro Sol stadium section, while Alonso also briefly went off track in the Esses.  

The session was red flagged with 22 minutes remaining when Pietro Fittipaldi’s Haas ground to a smoky halt at Turn 2 on an out lap. Meantime, Zhou Guanyu’s Alfa Romeo needed retrieving from the end of the pit lane when his gearbox failed to upshift.

Of the FP1 rookies, AlphaTauri’s Liam Lawson was fastest in 16^th but had a moment and visited the escape road at Ese del Lago. In the closing minutes of the session he caused a red flag when his car suffered a technical failure and, as he didn’t have time to cool the brakes, the front-left corner caught fire.

Sargeant was 17^th, ahead of Nyck de Vries in his final outing for Mercedes. Jack Doohan (Alpine) hit engine trouble on his way to 19^th, with Fittipaldi only managing nine laps before his day also ended early. 

Mexican Grand Prix FP2 results: Russell fastest from Tsunoda

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	km/h
1	George Russell	Mercedes	32	1'19.970			193.752
2	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	30	1'20.798	0.828	0.828	191.767
3	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	31	1'21.177	1.207	0.379	190.871
4	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	32	1'21.509	1.539	0.332	190.094
5	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	34	1'21.579	1.609	0.070	189.931
6	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	34	1'21.588	1.618	0.009	189.910
7	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	13	1'21.618	1.648	0.030	189.840
8	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	34	1'21.693	1.723	0.075	189.666
9	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	36	1'21.993	2.023	0.300	188.972
10	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	36	1'22.104	2.134	0.111	188.716
11	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	31	1'22.337	2.367	0.233	188.182
12	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	32	1'22.371	2.401	0.034	188.105
13	Alex Albon	Williams	24	1'22.447	2.477	0.076	187.931
14	Lando Norris	McLaren	31	1'22.738	2.768	0.291	187.270
15	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	27	1'22.763	2.793	0.025	187.214
16	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	23	1'22.840	2.870	0.077	187.040
17	Mick Schumacher	Haas	31	1'22.879	2.909	0.039	186.952
18	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	21	1'23.316	3.346	0.437	185.971
19	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	34	1'23.320	3.350	0.004	185.962
20	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo	34	1'23.369	3.399	0.049	185.853
View full results

What happened in Mexican GP Free Practice 2?

As in Austin last weekend, FP2 was a lengthened 90-minute 2023 Pirelli prototype tyre test for the majority of runners. Only those who skipped FP1, due to rookie drivers taking their place, got to run as normal.

AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly set the early bar at 1m22.186s before Sainz lapped in 1m21.943s. Mercedes’ George Russell was back in for this session, taking over from de Vries, and leapt to the top of the times on 1m21.742s on mediums.

After a Red Bull interlude – Verstappen took P1 with 1m21.588s, before Perez pipped him by 0.009s on 1m21.579s – Russell switched to softs and unleashed 1m19.970s.

Yuki Tsunoda was second quickest for AlphaTauri, ahead of Alpine’s Esteban Ocon – both also on the 2022 softs.

Just after the 30-minute mark Leclerc crashed heavily on the exit of Turn 8, backing his Ferrari backwards into the barriers.

Hamilton was fastest on the test tyres, over 1.5s off Russell’s pace, and less than a tenth clear of Perez and Verstappen.

The session ended two minutes early when Zhou pulled off with a hydraulic failure in the Foro Sol.