Charles Leclerc was the fastest driver in both of the opening practice sessions for the Mexico City Grand Prix, held at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. The margins in FP2 were particularly close, with the Ferrari driver setting the benchmark time of 1m17.827s, ahead of Lando Norris (1m17.930s) and George Russell (1m17.933s).

All three set their best laps on the Soft compound, following a similar programme. They ran the Medium tyre in the first part of the session before switching to the red-marked compound. Russell and Norris carried out their long-run simulations on the C5, while Leclerc opted for the C4, fitting a used set after completing his qualifying simulations on the Soft.

Medium and Soft were the most widely used compounds across the field in FP2, with only four drivers also running the Hard. Leclerc was not only the quickest on the C5 but also set the fastest time on the yellow-marked tyre.

Norris completed the highest number of laps on the C5, logging 25. Kimi Antonelli recorded the most laps on the C4 with 24, while Oscar Piastri completed 11 laps on the C3.

In the opening practice session, teams gave rookie drivers the opportunity to run in place of one of their regular race drivers. Among the reserve drivers, Frederik Vesti was the quickest, setting the third-fastest time overall for Mercedes. The top two positions on the timesheets were occupied by race drivers, with Leclerc posting a 1m18.128s lap and Antonelli a 1m18.787s. Vesti, also on Soft tyres, clocked a 1m18.861s.

During the first hour of running, the Hard compound was the preferred choice for the opening stint, before almost all drivers switched to the Medium and Soft compounds. FP1 took place in slightly warmer conditions than FP2. During the second session, ambient temperature was around 26°C, while track temperature fell to 34°C.

SIMONE BERRA – PIRELLI CHIEF ENGINEER:
"rack conditions proved better than expected. Although grip levels were fairly low during the opening stages of FP1, the circuit evolved significantly from the outset, helped by the running of the support categories. As a result, the track offered better conditions than last year, as reflected by the particularly competitive lap times. In addition, the effects of aerodynamic load loss caused by the altitude appear to be less pronounced with the current generation of cars, which may help explain why lap times are so close to last season’s reference.

During the first hour of running, most teams immediately chose the hardest compound both to familiarise themselves with the circuit and to help clean the track. Given that two sets of C3s could be considered surplus to requirements for the remainder of the weekend, this was also the natural choice for the cars entrusted to the young drivers. Both the Medium and Soft compounds performed very well, with a performance gap of around eight tenths of a second. On a circuit that naturally offers limited grip, the C5 was particularly effective in extracting its full potential.

Data gathered from the long runs indicate a significant level of degradation for both of the softer compounds. This opens up several possible strategic scenarios for the race, ranging from a one-stop strategy, with more careful tyre management, to a two-stop approach. On the front-left tyre, we observed localised graining, which already showed signs of improvement between the two sessions. If track evolution continues at the same rate seen today, we expect this phenomenon to reduce further over the course of the weekend."