Mexico City GP FP1: Leclerc tops, youngsters get 15 minutes of fame
F1 NewsFriday, 24 October 2025 at 21:32
Ferrari's Charles Leclerc topped the first practice session for the 2025 Mexico City Grand Prix as nine young drivers took part.
Leclerc posted a 1:18.380 to fastest of all at the end of a session that can be easily labeled as unrepresentative due to high temperature on a track that was green and lacked grip not to mention that nine of the regular drivers were watching from the pits as they handed their cars over to their teams' respective rookies.
Kimi Antonelli was second fastest in the Mercedes, 0.107s behind Leclerc with Nico Hulkenberg third fastest in the Sauber, 0.380s off the pace.
The came Oscar Piastri in fourth, 0.404s off the best time as Gabriel Bortoleto was fifth fastest in the second Sauber, 0.132s behind the Australian.
Then came the first of the young drivers, Arvid Lindblad, who was sixth fastest, driving the car of four-time Formula 1 Champion, Max Verstappen and 0.617s off the benchmark time.
Tsunoda in the sister Red Bull was down in eighth, almost one tenth slower the Lindblad as Esteban Ocon split the Bulls in seventh.
Not a good session for Tsunoda who was the only regular driver outpaced by the young driver in the other car.
Franco Colapinto and Alex Albon were ninth an tenths respectively.
It was an impressive showing for the young drivers who managed to keep the cars entrusted to them in one piece and as to how they finished, and with Lindblad being the fastest of them, Pato O'ward was second best, 13th fastest in Lando Norris' MCL39.
Frederik Vesti was 14th fastest in the Mercedes while Paul Aron was 15th in the Alpine ahead of Ryo Hirakawa who finished the session 16th fastest in the Haas.
Ayumu Iwasa was 17th fastest for Racing Bulls as Luke Browning followed in the Williams, 18th fastest after replacing Carlos Sainz.
Jak Crawford finished he session 19th in the Aston Martin as Antonio Fuoco was 20th in Lewis Hamilton's Ferrari.
Buildup towards FP1
After Austin, the F1 circus rose up to 2240 meters above sea level as we are set to race at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez for round 20 of the 2025 season.
Verstappen will be looking to close in more on Piastri and Norris in the F1 Championship while the McLaren pair will seek to fend him off while they also worry about fighting each other as each one seeks a maiden F1 Title.
The race in Mexico City poses a different challenge with altitude as the power units and their turbos will be working extra hard while the cars floors and aero will have to generate the maximum downforce.
While McLaren have clearly stopped the development of their MCL39, Red Bull Racing are still pushing to ensure Verstappen nails that fifth consecutive title.
The have some upgrades this weekend, some circuit-related such as enlarged front brake inlets and exits as well as revised engine cover with redistributed exit areas.
The RB21 will also have a revised floor body and and a revised floor edge wing.
Ferrari have additional body work exit louvres as well as enlarged rear brake ducts. Mercedes presented no new upgrades in the FIA submittals while Alpine have a revised engine cover.
Racing Bulls have a revised engine cover with larger rear upper exit as well as larger louvre panel. Williams have additional louvre panels as well on their FW47 which Sauber also did.
In terms of tyres, Pirelli has brought the C2 (Hard), C4 (Medium) and C5 (Soft)... Skipping the C3.
Another interesting aspect this weekend is the huge number of rookie drivers taking over in FP1, nine in total and they are as follows:
- Pato O'Ward in for Lando Norris at McLaren
- Frederik Vesti in for George Russell at Mercedes
- Antonio Fuoco in for Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari
- Arvid Lindblad in for Max Verstappen at Red Bull Racing
- Luke Browning in for Carlos Sainz at Williams
- Ayumu Iwasa in for Liam Lawson at Racing Bulls
- Jak Crawford in for Lance Stroll at Aston Martin
- Ryo Hirakawa in for Oliver Bearman at Haas
- Paul Aron in for Pierre Gasly at Alpine
FP1 Session Highlights
The session started in clear dry conditions with track temperatures a toasty 48 degrees Celsius while air temperature was at 23 degrees.
Such high track temperatures which are not representative of qualifying and race conditions in addition to how green the track is makes this session a good option for rookies to take over as the full-time drivers will not lose much learnings.
Vesti was the first driver to head out on track in the Mercedes as other driver lined up in the pits getting ready to start their session.
All drivers were on the Hard tyre, except for Hulkenberg, Ocon, and Isack Hadjar who started on the Mediums.
It was strange to see the likes of Verstappen and Norris with headphones sitting at the pitwall. Sainz also stepped up to the Williams pitwall, but we know he is a strategist deep down. George Russell decided to join the team at the back of the garage.
After completing five laps, Piastri returned to the McLaren garage as the mechanics started a setup change on his front suspension and wing.
With 35 minutes remaining, Piastri was the first to bolt on the Soft tyres and went for flying lap. He went to the top, almost a second faster than Hadjar who was second.
Colapinto then had a brief off-road moment through the esses but managed to keep going. Earlier, Aron in the sister Alpine suffers from a slide in Turn 4.
Soon, more driver bolt on the Soft tyres as the session entered its second half with Antonelli going faster than Piastri by almost three tenths as the track continued evolving.
Then Fernando Alonso had a moment but held his AMR25 brilliantly.
But then Leclerc went even faster, a tenth faster than the Italian.
On the other hand, Lindblad, in Verstappen's car ran wide at Turn 12, running hard on the kerbs as he was on a hot lap of Softs.
Then with 20 minutes remaining, Hadjar went deep into Turn 12, ended up in the run-off and had to reverse back on track bringing out a brief Yellow Flag.
Piastri then had a slide going through Turns 7 and 8 and went straight but managed to keep going.
The session was concluded with practice runs.
Mexico City GP FP1 Classification
loading
Latest News
Loading
