F1 Grand Prix practice results: Verstappen fastest in Mexico City

Verstappen’s title rival Lewis Hamilton led a Mercedes 1-2 in Free Practice 1, but the Dutchman bounced back to top FP2 later in the afternoon – setting the quickest time of the day at 1m17.301s.

Mexico City Grand Prix FP1 results: Bottas fastest from Hamilton

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	km/h
1	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	28	1'18.341			197.781
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	24	1'18.417	0.076	0.076	197.589
3	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	28	1'18.464	0.123	0.047	197.471
4	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	20	1'18.610	0.269	0.146	197.104
5	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	23	1'18.985	0.644	0.375	196.168
6	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Ferrari	26	1'19.463	1.122	0.478	194.988
7	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	26	1'19.656	1.315	0.193	194.516
8	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	20	1'19.667	1.326	0.011	194.489
9	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	20	1'19.759	1.418	0.092	194.265
10	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	27	1'19.858	1.517	0.099	194.024
11	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	30	1'20.011	1.670	0.153	193.653
12	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo	26	1'20.026	1.685	0.015	193.617
13	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	27	1'20.030	1.689	0.004	193.607
14	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	25	1'20.273	1.932	0.243	193.021
15	Lando Norris	McLaren	26	1'20.301	1.960	0.028	192.954
16	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	27	1'20.344	2.003	0.043	192.850
17	George Russell	Williams	23	1'20.517	2.176	0.173	192.436
18	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	23	1'21.580	3.239	1.063	189.928
19	Mick Schumacher	Haas	27	1'22.144	3.803	0.564	188.624
20	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	24	1'22.819	4.478	0.675	187.087
View full results

What happened in Free Practice 1?

On a dirty and dusty track, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez suffered spins entering Turn 16 inside the opening 12 minutes, both hitting the wall and damaging their rear wings.

Hamilton set the initial pace on soft tyres at 1m20.0s, but then ran off track at Turn 1 and rejoined on the wrong side of the bollard, a tenth clear of Verstappen who stayed out for a long run on the hard-compound rubber. Verstappen then improved to 1m19.826s but Hamilton trumped it with 1m19.781s, quicker by 0.045s.

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Bottas took a new set of softs just after the halfway point, lowering the P1 time to 1m18.834s. Hamilton managed a 1m18.976s before Verstappen set the fastest lap so far at 1m18.464s, as Max ran softs for the first time.

Bottas worked down to 1m18.341s, the fastest time of the session that Hamilton got to within 0.076s of. Verstappen ended up third, 0.123s off the pace, ahead of Perez – who lost 20 minutes of the session while repairs were made.

Pierre Gasly was fourth for AlphaTauri, ahead of the Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, Fernando Alonso (Alpine) and Leclerc.

Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes W12

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

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Mexico City Grand Prix FP2 results: Verstappen fastest from Bottas

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	km/h
1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	28	1'17.301			200.442
2	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	31	1'17.725	0.424	0.424	199.348
3	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	26	1'17.810	0.509	0.085	199.131
4	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	26	1'17.871	0.570	0.061	198.975
5	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Ferrari	29	1'18.318	1.017	0.447	197.839
6	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	29	1'18.429	1.128	0.111	197.559
7	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	28	1'18.605	1.304	0.176	197.117
8	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	31	1'18.644	1.343	0.039	197.019
9	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	32	1'18.681	1.380	0.037	196.926
10	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	27	1'18.732	1.431	0.051	196.799
11	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo	25	1'18.841	1.540	0.109	196.527
12	Lando Norris	McLaren	27	1'18.979	1.678	0.138	196.183
13	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	31	1'19.227	1.926	0.248	195.569
14	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	37	1'19.431	2.130	0.204	195.067
15	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	7	1'19.521	2.220	0.090	194.846
16	Mick Schumacher	Haas	30	1'19.620	2.319	0.099	194.604
17	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	36	1'19.730	2.429	0.110	194.335
18	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	17	1'20.820	3.519	1.090	191.714
19	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	28	1'21.581	4.280	0.761	189.926
20	George Russell	Williams	2
View full results

What happened in Free Practice 2?

In FP2, Verstappen set the initial pace at 1m18.818s on the medium-compound tyres and then produced a 1m18.206s, the fastest lap of the weekend so far. He subsequently dipped below the 1m18s bracket with a 1m17.920s.

His title rival Hamilton, running on hards, got mired in traffic and then had his best laptime deleted before locking up at Turn 1 and ruining his tyres. He was 5s off the pace after the first run.

Bottas was the first frontrunner on softs in this session, and took P2, 0.112s down on Verstappen’s medium time.

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Hamilton then set a new benchmark on softs at 1m17.810, but Verstappen blew that away with 1m17.301s, 0.509s quicker as he too took the red-sidewalled tyres. Perez went P3 on 1m17.871s, 0.61s off Hamilton, before Bottas improved to take P2 at 1m17.725s on used softs, still 0.424s off Verstappen.

At the end of the hour, the order was Verstappen, Bottas, Hamilton and Perez. Sainz was best of the rest this time, just over a second off the pace, ahead of Gasly and Leclerc.

Williams’s George Russell suffered a gearbox issue and didn’t set a laptime, while Daniel Ricciardo also suffered a transmission issue on his McLaren. Nicholas Latifi overshot Turn 16 in his Williams. and continued.

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• Mexican GP: Verstappen outpaces Bottas by 0.4s in second practice