Motorsport TechnologyMax Verstappen laid down an early marker in his bid to catch the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris and seal a fifth successive world drivers’ title.
With five races remaining including Mexico, Verstappen’s unlikely title bid is gathering serious momentum following victories in Italy, Azerbaijan and the USA. And, at the imposing and impressive Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, the Dutchman set the early pace, a time of 1m17.392s being 0.153s ahead of the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc.
Kimi Antonelli was next on the lap times ahead of Norris, whilst Piastri could only manage the 12th fastest lap time as he struggles to recapture his mid-season form.
Despite the encouraging start as per the timesheet, Verstappen still confessed himself unhappy with the balance of his Red Bull. An early double bluff? Only the Dutch maestro will know for sure.
“The short run on the soft we managed to do a good lap, everything else was pretty bad,” Verstappen told Sky Sports F1 afterward. “The medium short run was not great and the big problem is long runs where we seemed to struggle a lot. So that is of course a big concern for the race.
“The balance wasn’t even off, there was just no grip – that is the bigger concern. As soon as you go in a sustainable run, tyres are going hot. We were nowhere so that is a tough one to sort out as well, but we’ll see.
“You’re not going to win the race like that. You can be fast over one lap but if you have absolutely zero pace in the race then it’s going to be very tough. So I prefer to be fast in the race and not so fast over one lap.”
As for the McLaren duo, Norris will clearly be the happier of the two drivers and currently seems the driver in better form. He sat out FP1 for Pato O’Ward but was still significantly faster than the championship leader.
“We finish our first day on track in Mexico with solid running across two smooth sessions,” commented Andrea Stella, McLaren team principal. “We come away with lots of important information, and the initial readings from FP2 have our long run pace looking reasonably competitive, which is pleasing.
“Thank you to Pato who did a good job in place of Lando in FP1. He provided a valuable contribution to our data collection, which is appreciated by the team. We will now use today’s learnings to optimise the car to exploit its full potential for tomorrow’s Qualifying session.”
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