Carlos Sainz was the fastest in practice on the first day of activities of the Mexican F1 Grand Prix at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.
The Ferrari driver closed free practice 2 with a time of 1:17.699 minutes in front of 107,865 fans.
With just 13 minutes left in the session, George Russell stepped on the “es” washers, lost control of his Mercedes and crashed into the wall to bring out a red flag. The Briton got out of his vehicle on his own and was taken to the Autodromo Hospital for a routine check-up.
After 23 minutes of red flag to recondition the barriers, the drivers returned to the track to find the best set-up.
Behind Sainz was Oscar Piastri, from McLaren, at 0.178 seconds, followed by Yuki Tsunoda, from RB, at 0.179 seconds (one thousandth of a second behind Piastri). The top five were completed by Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) and Lando Norris (McLaren).
Rounding out the top 10 were Kevin Magnussen (Haas), Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes), Valtteri Bottas (Sauber), the Mexican Sergio Pérez (Red Bull) and Liam Lawson (RB).
The second free practice lasted 90 minutes, 30 more than usual, since the last half hour was tire testing with a view to testing the compound that will be used next season.
Max Verstappen got off the RB20 midway through the session due to Power Unit problems, so he did not record a competitive time. Williams’ Argentine, Franco Colapinto, was fifteenth.
The first session was led by George Russell and in it we had four Latin drivers on the track: Sergio Pérez, Franco Colapinto, Pato O’Ward (McLaren) and Felipe Drugovich (Aston Martin). It was a session with the participation of reserve/test drivers, in which Oliver Bearman (Ferrari), Andrea Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) and Robert Shwartzman (Sauber) took part.
For Patricio, the session meant the opportunity to continue the development of McLaren, the team that leads the constructors’ championship. Pato did 21 laps, leaving a great taste in the Woking team’s mouths.
“I could only do four or five laps of everything. I was missing, I was hungry,” said the man from Monterrey.
Behind Russell were Carlos Sainz (Ferrari), Yuki Tsunoda (RB) and Max Verstappen (Red Bull). Nico Hülkenberg (Haas) completed the top five. Czech finished in tenth. For its part, the best of the reserve drivers was Andrea Kimi Antonelli, from Mercedes, finishing in 12th position.
This Saturday Practice 3 will be held at 11:30 a.m. and the Mexico GP qualification will take place at 3:00 p.m.
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