Mexico City Grand Prix FP1: Russell fastest, Verstappen has engine trouble
F1 NewsFriday, 25 October 2024 at 21:34
George Russell topped the first practice session for the 2024 Mexico City Grand Prix ahead of Ferrari's Carlos Sainz as Max Verstappen was fourth.
The reigning Formula 1 champion did not have an ideal session after his running was interrupted early on with floor damage and then towards the end suffered from an issue with his power unit.
While Russell was running the Singapore package in his Mercedes after damaging the upgrade parts in his qualifying crash in Austin, he managed to go fastest ahead of Sainz, as Yuki Tsunoda was third fastest in the VCARB.
Verstappen was fourth fastest in the Red Bull ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, fifth in the Haas as Oscar Piastri was sixth fastest for McLaren.
Esteban Ocon was seventh in the Alpine ahead of Valtteri Bottas who was eighth fastest in the Sauber, while Liam Lawson was ninth and Sergio Perez in tenth.
As the order shows, the timings of the session are far from indicative of the pecking order and the fact that the session was Red flagged twice played a role not to mention the green track and the fact that there were five young drivers taking part in the session.
On the young drivers, the highest finishing was Kimi Antonelli who replaced Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes and managed not to crash and was 12th fastest.
Pato O'Ward who replaced Norris was 13th fastest while Felipe Drugovich - Fernando Alonso's replacement - was 18th fastest.
Robert Shwartzman was 19th in the Sauber of Zhou Guanyu while Oliver Bearman was last in the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc after contact with Alex Albon, the cause of the second Red flag.
Buildup towards FP1
F1 heads to Mexico City with controversy in the air as the debate surrounding the Verstappen/Norris incident from the US Grand Prix last weekend continues with McLaren exercising their right of review of the incident with a decision not yet made at the time of this report.
Norris will not drive in FP1 and instead O'Ward will be in the car for McLaren while Hamilton hands over his car to Antonelli his fingers crossed the Italian won't crash it.
Alonso had a rough start to his 400th F1 weekend and fell ill on Thursday but the plan was for him to skip FP1 and give the drive to Drugovich.
2025 Haas F1 drive Bearman will take over Leclerc's SF-24 for the first practices session around the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, while Guanyu was watching from the Sauber garage as Shwartzman was driving his car.
Perez will be looking to deliver a solid result in front of his home fans after he admitted his season so far has been far from ideal.
As for tyres, Pirelli have brought their C3 (Hard), C4 (Medium), and C5 (Soft) compounds in addition to 2025 prototypes to be tested in FP2.
In terms of car upgrades, all the teams have track specific parts this weekend, mainly related to cooling of the power units and the brakes, a challenge when racing at over 2200 meters above seas level.
McLaren however do have a new floor body on their MCL38.
FP1 Session Highlights
The session started in clear, dry conditions as the track temperature was at 44 degrees Celsius while the ambient temperature was 19 degrees.
Only five minutes into the session, the session wad Red flagged for debris on the track's main straight. Replay showed Antonelli driving over the debris.
Antonelli returned to the Mercedes pits for an inspection of the floor of the Mercedes which crucially is the upgraded car. Russell is driving the Singapore spec W15 after his upgrades were smashed in his qualifying crash in Austin.
Running resumed with 50 minutes remaining on the clock. Verstappen remained in the pits, his RB20 up on stands.
It seems the debris on the track came from the triple F1 champion's floor as the mechanics are working on fixing it.
Replay showed Piastri and Kevin Magnussen having a couple of oversteer moments but held their cars nicely.
Pierre Gasly soon reports over the radio: "It smells like something is cooking in the car."
With less than 40 minutes a second Red flag was out as Albon ended up in the wall just ahead of Turn 10 as Bearman parked the Ferrari on the side of the track with damage. The pair have collided.
The replay showed Albon losing control of his car and hitting Bearman's Ferrari and ended up in the barriers. Albon seemed to have taken too much kerb coming out of Turn 9.
The session was restarted with less than 25 minutes of running still available. The drivers returned to the track with the Soft tyres making their first appearance on the some of the cars. The Hards were the tyres used at the start of the session.
Franco Colapinto had a moment at Turn 12, lost his car under braking and had to take to the run-off area to avoid crashing.
With seven minutes remaining, Verstappen reported something wrong with his power unit saying it wasn't "behaving nice" and the reported: "I have no power."
The Dutchman limped back to the pits in fourth gear.
Replay then showed Piastri going off track at Turn 12 and then coming back in Drugovich's path. No contact though.
The session ended with practice starts.
How they finished
Russell posted a 1:17.998 to go fastest with Sainz 0.317s behind him in second while Tsunoda was 0.701s off the pace in third.
Verstappen was 0.841s down on Russell's time in fourth and 0.065s ahead of Hulkenberg in fifth, as the German was 0.054s ahead of Piastri in sixth.
Ocon was in seventh with a 1:18.996 and 0.052s ahead of Bottas in eighth, the Finn 0.045s ahead of Lawson in ninth.
Perez was tenth, 1.096s off the pace.
Mexico City Grand Prix FP1 Classification
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