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Formula 1
Mexico City GP
F1 Mexico GP Live Commentary and Updates - FP1 & FP2
Friday's action from the 19th round of the 2023 Formula 1 season.
Max Verstappen and Red Bull may have both championship crowns in the bag already, but there remains plenty to play for in Mexico.
After seeing his points advantage over Lewis Hamilton grow to 39 points through the Mercedes driver's disqualification in the United States, Sergio Perez will be keen to put on a show for his home fans and solidify his second position in the standings.
Ollie Bearman will make his F1 debut with Haas in the weekend's opening session, standing in for Kevin Magnussen, with Jack Doohan, Frederik Vesti, Theo Pourchaire and Isack Hadjar featuring for Alpine, Mercedes, Alfa Romeo and AlphaTauri respectively.
FP1 will get under way at 19:30pm BST with FP2 at 23:00pm BST.
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As we were reminiscing, Verstappen went quickest on a 1m19.511s with the medium, with Leclerc on the same tyre slotting in one tenth slower. Ricciardo meanwhile has moved into third on the test tyre.
Sainz motors up to fourth, Bottas to fifth and Russell to sixth as Albon sits in the pits.
The rain we mentioned earlier in the final sector hasn't given anybody much trouble and appears to have eased off now.
Piastri has become the first driver to bolt on a set of softs, so we may see the rookie light up the times in a minute.
Sure enough, Piastri goes fastest on 1m19.163s. He's joined on the softs now by Albon, Alonso, Perez and Sargeant.
Albon goes second on his first flyer with softs, a 1m19.466s, but Alonso won't be joining him at the sharp end after a huge spin at Turn 9 that he does well to gather without harpooning his Aston Martin into the wall.
Sargeant's first effort on the softs included striking one of the floppy corner markers at the chicane in the first sector, and he ended up half a second down on his team-mate in eighth.
Verstappen now has a set of softs and resumes his position at the head of the timesheets on a 1m18.685s. Norris follows him across the line and is just 0.119s slower to slot into second.
Hamilton meanwhile clocks in third fastest ahead of Ocon in fourth. Hulkenberg goes purple in sector one, but can only muster seventh, behind Piastri and Albon.
Tsunoda is the only driver out on track at the moment not using the softs. Remember, he has little to gain from running them given he'll be starting at the back anyway, and is making up for lost time after sitting out FP1 on the mediums.
Ricciardo briefly pops up into third, but is shuffled back a spot by Perez as Sainz clocks a subdued ninth fastest on the softs.
To paraphrase Murray Walker, with half of the session gone there's still half of the session to go!
As Leclerc slides into third and Bottas into fourth, Perez has a big moment in the final corner when his left-hand wheels traverse the white line. It's a big old wobble for the Mexican hero, but he gathers it up without pancaking the wall.
Fourth for Bottas in the Alfa is pretty good going after his car's troubled day, just 0.261s down on Verstappen as things stand. Can he keep it at the sharp end as the times continue to tumble?
Alonso is informed to expect rain in around 10 or 12 laps. Since his earlier rotation on softs he's taken on another set of mediums.
Like Alonso, Verstappen is running several seconds off his best soft times with mediums as it appears the quali sim runs have concluded for the time being.
The skies are definitely a little more overcast over the venue where Michael Schumacher took his first Group C win for Mercedes in 1990.
Sargeant informs his engineer that it's now raining out on the track. Everybody is currently running either the medium or hard tyres.
Russell is informed that the rain may get heavier in intensity in the next five to ten minutes.
Norris and Hamilton are the two fastest drivers on track at the moment lapping in the 1m22s bracket. Of course, we have no idea at this stage what fuel levels they're running.
As cars continue to circulate in increasingly murky, difficult conditions it seems clear that the timesheets will be locked in place with Verstappen ahead of Norris, Leclerc and Bottas as you top four.
With its two cars in 18th and 20th, it's not been an encouraging session for Aston Martin with Alonso bringing up the rear after his earlier spin. It could have been worse though, had the Spaniard not expertly gathered up his rotating mount and avoided a costly altercation with the barriers.
Stroll and Magnussen have now switched to softs. The pair are 18th and 19th in the timesheets.
Track temperatures have dropped by 5.6 °C since the start of the session, and are now at 32.1 °C.
Stroll and Magnussen have returned to the pits, and aren't going to improve on their times it seems.
Adding together the possible best sector times, you get a 1m18.619s which is only a shade better than the 1m18.686s set by pacesetter Verstappen. Hulkenberg through sector one and Hamilton through sector three were quicker, but as usual the Red Bull is the strongest overall.
Both Red Bulls and Piastri have taken softs for the dying minutes of the session.
Checkered flag
However nobody is setting times that look remotely close to improvements, as the checkered flag comes out to bring FP2 to a close.
Verstappen therefore completes a Friday clean sweep of both FP1 and FP2, seeing out Norris by 0.119s in FP2 after he'd seen off Alex Albon by 0.095s earlier on.
Sainz has reported that his left mirror is cracked. How does that happen?
Meanwhile on track there was an enjoyable exchange down into Turn 1 between Bottas and Verstappen, with the latter's engineer Gianpiero Lambiase noting that the Finn "even used DRS" in his efforts to stay ahead. "Unbelievable," he adds, while the treble world champion simply laughs.
Bottas wasn't exactly keen to give up his track position and even tried to fend off Verstappen around the outside. We like to see a bit of fight, but not too sure it was worth the aggro for all concerned at the end of FP2.
Only 17 laps completed in that session for Lance Stroll, we understand, is due to a problem he had with his left-front wheel. The Aston driver completed the fewest laps of anybody in FP2, half as many as Sainz and Tsunoda with the most on 34.
With the benefit of an extra session compared to his team-mate as a caveat, it was a strong day for Ricciardo who ended Friday in sixth as Tsunoda finished 12th. Of those who had to give up their cars for FP1, only Bottas was quicker than his team-mate.
In case you missed any of FP2's action, here's the full report as Max Verstappen enjoyed a business-as-usual Friday to head Lando Norris: https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/f1-mexico-gp-fp2-report/10538921/
Thank you for joining us on the live text today, as we kicked off the Mexico Grand Prix weekend. We'll be back for more tomorrow with FP3 (for the first time since Suzuka given the recent run of sprint events) and qualifying as we build up to the Grand Prix on Sunday. Will we get a first non-Verstappen win in Mexico since 2019? Tomorrow will give us some clues to find out. See you then!
By: Autosport Staff
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