Why lap times in Mexico have been so much closer to the previous F1 era

Watching the likes of Jamie Constable in the ex-Michele Alboreto and Danny Sullivan Tyrrell 011/5 duke it out with Mike Cantillon's ex-Carlos Reutemann and Keke Rosberg FW07C around the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in the Masters Historic series has had benefits beyond the pure enjoyment of hearing Cosworth V8s blast around this fabulous venue. Not that these Formula 1 cars raced here in period, of course.

Amongst the myriad criticisms of the 2026 F1 technical regulations, one observation is utterly objective because it is measured on the clock: this year's cars are slower around the lap than last year's.

The gap varies. Belgium was among the more extreme examples: Kimi Antonelli's pole position was almost four seconds off Lando Norris's 2025 pole time. At less ‘energy starved' venues the gap is less. 

Any comparison of lap times comes with the caveat that the FIA never intended to make the new cars faster than the old ones. And whenever performance is pegged back by new regulations reducing downforce and other performance factors, inevitably times creep downwards through ongoing development.

Intriguingly, here in Mexico the lap times this season have been much closer – indeed, in Friday's first practice, Charles Leclerc's fastest time of 1m18.128s was faster than the one with which he topped the equivalent session in 2025 (1m18.380s). In improving to 1m17.827s in FP2 he was just a fraction off Max Verstappen's 1m17.392s last year.

The gaps then widened in FP3 and qualifying as the majority of the grid laboured to manage the behaviour of Pirelli's C5 soft tyre in higher ambient temperatures, but Lewis Hamilton's pole time of 1m16.514s wasn't too far off Norris's from 2025: 1m15.586s.

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari

Photo by: Manuel Eletto / Getty Images

The thinner air at altitude here has played a significant role in terms of straightline speeds but that is only part of the picture, since top speeds down the main straight hit a hard limit owing to the restricted amount of electrical charge.

Scheduling sessions for the supporting events before the F1 cars ran expedited the evolution of a track surface which is usually very ‘green' at the start of a grand prix weekend.

As well as the Masters Historic series, the GTM Super Copa and Formula 4 NACAM Championship are on the support card this weekend. This is not unusual, but spreading out their activities played a useful role in conditioning the track, which has been resurfaced between Turn 10 and Turn 1. It's understood the remainder of the track will be resurfaced ahead of next year's Mexico City Grand Prix in order to re-homologate it to FIA Grade 1 certification.

"I think it's the first time this year that we are so close to 2025 regulations with these new cars," said Pirelli chief engineer Simone Berra. 

"I think part of these results are due to the track in better condition compared with last year. We have several supporting series that are helping obviously. All the supporting series ran before FP1, and between FP1 and FP2. So the track was evolving quite a lot during the day [Friday]. 

"I would say also that the conditions, the altitude here, it's in favour of these cars compared to the old ones. They were losing more downforce, the old cars, compared with what they're losing in this car generation. Also, the other point is that the engine can push more compared with a normal situation or sea level conditions."

Alexander Albon, Williams

Photo by: Manuel Eletto / Getty Images

The different performance envelope of the latest cars has generated many new challenges this weekend, particularly at Turn 12, the entrance to the stadium section. Higher top speeds has made judging the braking points more difficult since the effect of ‘dirty air' from cars ahead is more pronounced.

"Full deployment down most straights, and if you look at the straightline speeds, we are monstrous," said Alex Albon after qualifying. 

"Especially corners like Turn 4, into Turn 12 this weekend. Braking zones are kind of 25-30 metres earlier, partly because of how much speed we're carrying down the straights. I would like to think we're going to break all the speed records possibly this weekend with the amount of straightline speed there is and how much deployment we have."