Behind Verstappen, the battle for outright pace looks to be very close in conditions and through corner types that somewhat negate the RB19’s usual strengths. And in the long run exercises at FP2’s end, McLaren, through Lando Norris, seemed particularly strong.
Elsewhere, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton led the way on pace for Ferrari and Mercedes respectively, while Aston Martin had a second tough Friday in seven days following its United States GP struggles.
Here, then, is everything we learned yesterday in Mexico.
Verstappen topped FP1 with a 1m19.718s effort ahead of surprise package Alex Albon and his FW45 by just 0.095s. Albon surprised even Williams with his pace early in the weekend at a track where the team had arrived feeling pessimistic about being in certain points contention. Perez followed in third ahead of Norris and Leclerc.
But while the teams began to understand how their maximum downforce packages and additional bodywork cooling openings were working in the famously thin air here, and there were also slips and spills aplenty on the low-grip surface, the biggest story of the opening session was the combined fates of the five (non-Oscar Piastri) rookies taking part.
Ferrari junior Oliver Bearman took 15th in Kevin Magnussen’s place for Haas, with Isack Hadjar finishing in 17th place in Yuki Tsunoda’s AlphaTauri. Jack Doohan came in just behind as Pierre Gasly sat out FP1 for Alpine, while Frederik Vesti finished 19th in George Russell’s Mercedes.
Theo Pourchaire’s outing in place of Valtteri Bottas for Alfa Romeo never really got going, as an alarm appeared on his dashboard and coincided with a long throttle pedal feeling early in FP1, with the issues reoccurring three more times he emerged from the pits to try to and set a lap time.
Source: Autosport