Practice 1 Report - Russell tops times

George Russell
© Mercedes

George Russell led the time sheets at the end of FP1 for the Mexican Grand Prix, a session disrupted by two red flags, one of them following a collision between Alex Albon and Oliver Bearman that left the Williams seriously damaged. Carlos Sainz was second quickest but already 0,3s slower than the Mercedes driver, while Max Verstappen had limited running, first as part of his RB20's floor broke off in the main straight and later because of a ªPower Unit-related issue, ending the session in P4. Yuki Tsunoda took a sensational 3rd place for VCARB, on a track where the Italian cars always go quite well.

A very dusty track made life difficult for the drivers early on, but such is the development pace in Formula 1 that Russell's best lap time was over 1,8s faster than what had been achieved one year ago in FP1 for this Grand Prix. Russell, running with the old aerodynamic spec on his W15 was already quick on the Hard tyres but then make a bigger improvement than all his rivals to become the first driver to run under 1m18s this weekend. Subbing for Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Antonelli took a more conservative approach than in Monza, but also had to stop early, as he ran over the bits that had fallen off Verstappen's car on the run down to Turn 1, with his mechanic repairing the minor damage the new floor of his car suffered. Running with the Softs at the end of the session, the young Italian was 12th quickest, fastest of the five rookies that were on track in this session.

For Max Verstappen the session was quite disrupted, the Dutch never managed to get into his rhythm. Although the mechanics replaced the broken floor edge during the red flag necessary to remove the debris from the track, there was quite a bit of patch up work done on the RB20 and, therefore, the car was not in its ideal aerodynamic configuration. The over 0,8s gap to Russell was quite significant, as was the half a second deficit for Sainz, but more of a concern was the Power Unit issue that stopped the Dutch ten minutes from the end of the session, after he complained of lack of power. Local hero Sérgio Pérez had a trouble free session, but, just like in Austin, was unable to match Verstappen's pace and was only 10th quickest at the end of the session.

For Ferrari the lap times set by Sainz, both on the short and long runs, were quite encouraging, but the team has a bit of repair work to do on the other chassis, as the left front wheel of the SF-24 that Beaman drove on this session was damaged on his collision with Albon. The young Brit had done just seven laps before the incident, so Leclerc will have quite a lot of catching up to do once he get back into his car for FP2.

With Pato O'Ward driving his car in this session, title contender Lando Norris was a spectator, but team mate Oscar Piastri was out on track trying the new floor the team finally introduced this weekend. The Australian was not impressed with the balance of his car, calling it, "quite terrible" and was only 6th quickest, almost one second behind Russell's benchmark. As for the Mexican rookie, O'Ward acquitted himself well, made no mistakes and ended the session in P13.

With many cars out of position, Yuki Tsunoda set an impressive pace both on the Hard and Soft tyres, ending up in third place, 0,8s behind Russell, while Liam Lawson wasn't able to get up to speed as well as the Japanese driver. Even though the Kiwi did his Soft tyres run much later in the session, when the grip levels were picking up, he was down in P9, almost 0,4s behind his team mate.

Nico Hulkenberg continued his impressive run with P5 for Haas, while Esteban Ocon, finally running the new upgraded aero package on his Alpine was 7th, ahead of Valtteri Bottas. The Finn always goes very well on low grip surfaces, so it was no surprise he consistently ran inside the top ten but as the grip levels will increase, he's expected to go slowly down the order as his car lacks downforce compared to the opposition.

The Albon-Bearman incident happened just 22 minutes into the session, while all drivers were still on Hard tyres, The rookie was on an out lap while Albon was on a flying lap when the met at the end of the Esses, the faster section of this track. Bearman move as far out of the tarmac as he could, but Albon opted not to lift and tightened his Turn 11 exit, losing the control of his Williams and spinning into the left front of the Ferrari. The blue car then speared off the track and hit the tech-pro barriers hard, so the British mechanics will now face a race against time to have it repaired in time for the start of FP2.