26/10/2024
NEWS STORY
Ahead of today's sole practice session the air temperature is 17 degrees C, while the track temperature is 29 degrees, similar to yesterday morning.
For various reasons, Albon, Leclerc, Russell and Verstappen have a lot of catching up to do this morning. The Thai driver crashed early in FP1 and missed all of FP2, while Leclerc's car was damaged in that same incident and in FP2 the Monegasque didn't get to do a single lap on the softs.
Russell crashed in FP2 - his second crash in a fortnight - and as for Verstappen, the Dutchman claims to have had an engine problem, but we have our doubts, you see FP2 was given over entirely to tyre testing and we don't think the Red Bull driver was too keen.
That said, both Red Bull and Mercedes broke the overnight curfew.
Indeed, that tyre test - to aid Pirelli with its 2025 compounds - meant that FP2 was effectively meaningless to everybody, consequently we expect this session to be very busy.
The lights go green and Russell heads out keen to try his new chassis. He is followed by Bottas, Alonso, Stroll and Verstappen.
While Russell is running the Silverstone spec, teammate Hamilton has the Austin version.
Verstappen has changed his engine, using one from his pool of power units.
On softs, the Dutchman posts an 18.397, he is the only driver on the red-banded rubber, the rest having opted for either mediums or hards.
Gasly goes second with a 19.947.
Hamilton heads out on softs, the Briton, who handed his car over to Kimi Antonelli for the opening session, only got to run one lap on mediums in the second session.
Russell has switched from mediums to softs, while Verstappen complains that he has no rear grip.
Hamilton posts an 18.988 to go second, 0.659s down on Verstappen.
Ocon goes third with a 19.864 but is demoted when Russell stops the clock at 18.284.
Gasly locks-up as he enters the stadium.
Verstappen improves to 18.329, 0.045s off Russell's pace.
With 47 minutes remaining the Ferraris head out, leaving 9 drivers yet to appear.
Bottas goes fourth (19.444) and Stroll third, the Finn on mediums and the Canadian on softs.
Alonso goes fourth on the red-banded rubber.
Hamilton goes quickest with an 18.123 but is immediately demoted by Sainz (17.825) and then Leclerc (17.889).
As the McLaren pair begin their first flying laps -both on softs - Hulkenberg goes eighth (18.759), to become the highest placed medium runner. While Norris aborts his lap, Piastri goes fifth with an 18.302.
Eventually Norris puts it all together and posts a 17.902 to go third.
A spin for Lawson at the stadium exit after taking too much kerb causes panic as drivers have to take avoiding action. "Anything we need to look at," the kiwi is asked.
Hulkenberg improves to sixth on the mediums, while Perez goes seventh, ahead of his Red Bull teammate.
"Brakes don't feel great today," reports Hulkenberg as Sainz goes quickest with a 17.447 despite not being quickest in any of the sectors.
Magnussen goes sixth with an 18.175, like his teammate he is on mediums.
Perez improves to fourth with an 18.000.
Sainz gets well out of shape, and runs wide, almost collecting Piastri as he rejoins the track.
Some impressive gymnastics from one of the Ferrari crew who trips over as he moves backwards to allow Leclerc to leave his garage.
Leclerc retakes the top spot with a 17.430 but Sainz responds with a 17.334, the pair having used just one set of softs thus far.
Switching to the softs, Colapinto goes fifth with a 17.907. "I hit the floor quite hard on the exit of Turn 3," admits the Argentine as Tsunoda goes third with a 17.834 on mediums!
Quickest in the final two sectors, Norris goes top with a 16.551, however Piastri responds with a 16.492.
Hamilton goes fourth (17.060), while Russell can only manage seventh (17.433).
"Lewis that's P4 to Piastri, just over half a second." "That was a decent lap, ****," he replies. "Wow, that's quick!"
Tsunoda goes fifth with a 17.302, ahead of the Ferrari pair.
On fresh rubber, Leclerc can only manage fifth *17.232), while his teammate goes third with a 16.832, 0.340s down on Piastri.
Verstappen goes fourth with a 17.003, 0.511s off the pace, while a poor final sector due to locking-up in the stadium means that Perez remains 13th.
"Russell got in your way and he was on an in lap," Magnussen is told after failing to improve on 15th. Teammate Hulkenberg has also failed to improve on the softs.
Bottas goes eleventh and Zhou seventeenth, leaving the Alpine pair propping up the timesheets.
While Ocon improves to seventeenth, Gasly aborts his lap and remains last.
"Ah, this doesn't work, no grip front and rear," sighs Verstappen.
A mistake as he enters the stadium blows another lap for Perez as both drivers struggle for grip.
As the clock ticks down, Leclerc posts a PB in S1. He loses pace in S2 due to traffic and subsequently aborts the lap.
A late improvement sees Magnussen go ninth with a 17.474.
The session ends. Piastri is quickest, ahead of Norris, Sainz, Verstappen, Hamilton, Leclerc, Tsunoda, Russell, Magnussen and Lawson.
Albon is eleventh, ahead of Bottas, Colapinto, Perez, Alonso, Hulkenberg, Stroll, Ocon, Zhou and Gasly.
While McLaren struggled yesterday, this morning has been a different matter entirely, with Ferrari seemingly the Woking outfit's main threat.
Mercedes form continues to swing back and forth while Red Bull clearly has much work to do.
RB has impressed as have Williams and Haas.
Check out our Saturday gallery from Mexico City here.