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Formula 1
Mexican GP
F1 Mexico City GP Live Commentary and Updates - FP3 & Qualifying
Saturday's action at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City
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A quick check on the sky and the weather forecasters were spot on: Sunny and dry conditions with a current air temperature of 21.2oC. Perfect.
So far in practice it has been Red Bull on top with Mercedes a fraction off where they would love to be going into qualifying. But this is when it counts over a single lap, with Q1 getting underway in a few minutes time.
The Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez is packed out and the baseball stadium section is generating a wall of noise. It is a stunning atmosphere for a Formula 1 event.
Lights green
Here we go, Q1 is underway!
Latifi and the two Haas drivers get things underway on the track early doors. The rest of the drivers are still getting cosy in their cockpits.
It doesn't look so calm in the Red Bull garage, with Verstappen's rear wing receiving plenty of last-minute work from the mechanics. Much like it was pre-qualifying back in Austin.
Russell and the Alfa Romeo drivers have joined the track action. First timed laps coming up.
Stopwatch
Raikkonen sets the early benchmark of 1m19.108s as the rest of the grid begins to emerge from the pits for the first time in Q1.
You can tell where Perez is around the track by where the wave of noise is from the fans. You could call that a Mexican wave.
Stopwatch
Leclerc goes fastest now with a 1m17.991s.
Red flag
Red flag! Stroll has crashed!
The Aston Martin driver, who was starting from the back of the grid anyway due to grid penalties, will definitely be at the back now with that crash. He's hit the outside wall coming out of the final corner.
Stroll lost the rear end of his car which sent him backwards into the wall before being spun around for a second hit with the front. The Canadian appears to be OK and is out of the car.
The crash sprayed debris all over the track which is being hastily cleared up by the track marshals. Once that is tidied away Q1 will resume with 10m58s to go.
Race director Michael Masi has come down to the scene of the accident to inspect the crash barriers which are being repaired. That means the delay might be a little longer than expected. Time to get a brew.
Stroll's beaten up Aston Martin has been returned to the pitlane, so at least his mechanics can get busy repairing the car for tomorrow. No word on a restart time for Q1 just yet for the rest of us.
Red Bull has confirmed it is "precautionary work" being carried out on the rear wing of its cars during this stoppage. They also confirm there are no cracks, which was the issue from Austin.
Race control have stated a five-minute warning will be given before Q1 resumes. So we've got a five minutes at the very least, but likely to be a fair bit more. Best to delay those firework plans.
The delay is due to the ongoing repairs to the barriers that took a double tap from Stroll.
Q1 will resume at 14:33 local time. That's five minutes time - just like they promised!
A red flag incident involving Raikkonen will be investigated after the session. Hmmm.
TV replays have shown why Raikkonen is under investigation. He was right behind Stroll when he crashed and when the red flag came out he had already passed the pit entry bollard but began to pit anyway, only to pull back on to the track.
Anyway, here we go for Q1 Part II. But not for Sainz, who is crawling on the main straight out of pitlane with no power.
A few flicked switches on his steering wheel and advice from his race engineer and Sainz gets his Ferrari back up and running. Panic over.
Stopwatch
Right, some actual Q1 lap times of note, as Gasly goes top with a 1m17.746s.
Stopwatch
Hamilton then takes over at the top, but not for long as Mercedes team-mate Bottas goes P1 with a 1m17.516s.
Stopwatch
That's a statement lap from Verstappen. The Red Bull driver's 1m16.788s is 0.663s faster than team-mate Perez in second place.
Behind the top two Norris has split the Mercedes pair to go P4, who are going for a second push lap in Q1 with four minutes of the session to go.
Stopwatch
Better from the Mercs, as Bottas goes P2 with a 1m16.959s which is just one-tenth of a second off Verstappen. Hamilton is up to P3 but four-tenths back.
Currently Latifi, Schumacher, Mazepin, Russell and Stroll are in the drop zone. Mazepin tries to get ahead of his team-mate on track but is told in no uncertain terms over his team radio to stay behind and create a gap.
Sainz is the driver at risk having had his earlier engine worry and a couple of messy laps. He is P15 but does have a healthy gap over his nearest challenger Latifi.
Checkered flag
Sainz jumps up to the top 10 to comfortably make it into Q2. Latifi improves but not by enough to displace Vettel ahead of him.
Both Russell and Vettel improve with their final Q1 laps to push Latifi and Alonso into the drop zone.
And Alonso is out in P16! He joins Latifi, Schumacher, Mazepin and Stroll as the drivers out in Q1.
Track evolution was the key there with plenty of late lap time gains, which saw Bottas take top spot at the end of the session, with Leclerc moving up to second place. Verstappen was dropped to third but he won't be too worried having only completed one run.
The Q1 drama isn't over yet - an incident at pit exit involving Russell and Latifi will be investigated after the session. The stewards will be busy this evening.
By: Autosport Staff
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