Leclerc Sweeps Mexico Practice as Verstappen and Lawson Collide in FP2
Charles Leclerc topped both Friday sessions in Mexico City as an engine problem clouded Hamilton's bid for second in the championship, Verstappen and Lawson clashed, and Russell conceded that Antonelli has outperformed him.
Charles Leclerc topped both practice sessions for the Mexico City Grand Prix on Friday, setting a 1m18.128s in FP1 and heading the order again in the afternoon. Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur moved quickly to temper the excitement, and the rest of the day gave him reason to. Lewis Hamilton’s running was cut short by an engine problem, Max Verstappen and Liam Lawson came together in FP2, and George Russell gave an unusually candid verdict on the team-mate who leads him by 123 points.
Why Vasseur is not trusting Leclerc’s Friday double
On the surface, this was Ferrari’s best Friday in some time. Leclerc arrives in Mexico on the back of second place in Austin, where he climbed from fourth on the grid to split Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Verstappen. RacingNews365 credits Ferrari’s latest power unit upgrade with a share of the gain, which makes sense at this circuit.
The Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez sits more than 2,200 metres above sea level, where the air is roughly a quarter less dense than at a sea-level track. Wings generate less downforce, radiators shed less heat and the turbocharger has to work far harder to feed the combustion engine. Under the 2026 regulations, with a much larger share of power coming from the electrical side, how a manufacturer manages that thin air is a genuine differentiator. A power unit that has just taken a step forward will show it most clearly here, on one of the longest run-downs to a first corner on the calendar.
Why the headline times flatter Ferrari
Vasseur’s caution is easy to understand, and PlanetF1’s analysis of the data supports it: beneath the headline times, the picture is far less one-sided. Friday single-lap times are an unreliable guide at the best of times. Teams run different fuel loads, engine modes and tyre programmes, and the track at this venue evolves sharply over the weekend as the dust clears.
The season so far also counsels caution. Ferrari sit second in the constructors’ championship on 474 points, 133 behind Mercedes, and they have won only two grands prix all year, one each for Leclerc and Hamilton. Mercedes, by contrast, have 12 wins and have rarely needed to top a Friday timesheet to dominate a Sunday. Antonelli won from pole in Austin without much fanfare beforehand.
My view is that Ferrari should be the favourites for pole on Saturday, because the upgrade and the altitude suit each other. Sunday is a different matter. Tyre management in thin air, where cars slide and overheat more, has decided plenty of races in Mexico, and that is precisely the area in which Friday’s fastest laps reveal least.
Hamilton’s engine scare lands in the tightest fight of the season
Hamilton’s afternoon ended early with an engine issue, and his remarks afterwards made clear that he is hoping the damage is limited. The timing is poor. At a circuit where altitude makes cooling and power unit settings so specific, lost practice laps are harder to recover than usual.
The bigger concern is what happens if a component cannot be saved. Should Ferrari need to fit parts beyond the permitted allocation, a grid penalty would follow, and that matters more than it might appear for a driver 124 points off the lead. The title is effectively Antonelli’s to lose, but the battle behind him is extraordinarily close.
| Position | Driver | Points | Gap to second |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | George Russell (Mercedes) | 242 | 0 |
| 3 | Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) | 241 | 1 |
| 4 | Max Verstappen (Red Bull) | 236 | 6 |
| 5 | Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) | 233 | 9 |
Four drivers are separated by nine points with five rounds to run. Hamilton gained ground with fourth in Austin, while Russell could manage only eighth, and that is the context for Friday’s frustration. In a fight this close, a single compromised weekend is enough to drop a driver from second to fifth.
Second place is a consolation prize, but not a meaningless one. For Hamilton, finishing runner-up in a Ferrari would be a tangible marker of progress in his second season with the team. For Leclerc, beating his team-mate in that fight would carry its own significance. If Hamilton’s engine survives, Ferrari’s Friday pace could help both of them take points off Russell this weekend. If it doesn’t, the pressure falls entirely on Leclerc.
Verstappen, Lawson and a pointed remark about seats
The other talking point of FP2 was the contact between Verstappen and Lawson. Verstappen’s response was more cutting than the incident itself. He told Lawson that colliding with him was not “very smart” for a driver “fighting for your seat”. Racing Bulls have responded publicly, and opinion elsewhere has split, with some defending Verstappen on the grounds that a less forgiving driver would have squeezed Lawson into the wall.
Practice collisions usually come from misread intentions. One car is on a push lap while the other is preparing tyres or cooling down, and the closing speeds catch both drivers out. Without a clear view of who misjudged what, apportioning blame is guesswork. The remark about seats is another matter, because it touches a nerve that runs through the whole Red Bull family.
Lawson knows that insecurity better than most. He was moved back to the junior team after just two races alongside Verstappen in 2025. This season he has been solid rather than spectacular: ninth in the championship with 77 points, comfortably ahead of team-mate Arvid Lindblad on 38, and in the points again in Austin. Those are not the numbers of a driver who should be fearing for his future. Even so, Verstappen’s comment will be heard in the same building where those decisions are made.
The RB22 disconnect
Red Bull’s own Friday was more troubling than the incident. Verstappen ended the day fifth, three tenths off Leclerc, despite the damage his car sustained. The team admitted it had found a “disconnect” in the RB22. In engineering terms, that usually means the car is not behaving as the team’s simulation and wind tunnel tools predicted, which is the hardest kind of problem to fix mid-season.
Verstappen has extracted more from this car than the constructors’ table suggests. Red Bull are tied with McLaren on 355 points for third, and Isack Hadjar’s sixth in Austin was a solid result, but it is Verstappen’s third place there that keeps him in touch with the fight for second. If Red Bull cannot close the gap on a weekend when Ferrari look sharp, his chances of finishing runner-up shrink quickly.
Russell’s candid verdict on the Mercedes pecking order
Russell has said publicly that Antonelli has been operating at a higher level than him this year. The numbers support him. Antonelli has 365 points and nine wins; Russell has 242 and three. In Austin, Antonelli converted pole into victory while Russell finished eighth from sixth on the grid.
That kind of admission is rare from an established lead driver about a team-mate in only his second season. It speaks well of Russell, and it is probably smart management too. Mercedes have lived through an intra-team war before, during the Hamilton and Nico Rosberg years. By accepting the hierarchy openly, Russell removes any suggestion that the team is split and shifts his own focus to the fight for second, where he leads by a single point.
The arithmetic is not quite final. Antonelli’s 123-point lead is fractionally less than the 125 points available from five grand prix victories, before any sprint points are counted. In practice, though, Russell would need to win almost everything while Antonelli failed to score, and nothing in Antonelli’s season suggests that is likely. For Mercedes, the more realistic question is how quickly they can wrap up the constructors’ title with a 133-point lead over Ferrari.
Cadillac’s open seat and the drivers left without one
Russell also put forward a name for the driver market: Frederik Vesti, Mercedes’ reserve, as a possible Cadillac driver in 2027. The American team has yet to confirm Valtteri Bottas alongside Sergio Pérez for next season, and that delay is starting to look meaningful.
Cadillac’s debut season has been difficult. They are the only team without a point, and in Austin Bottas retired while Pérez finished 19th. Keeping two experienced drivers would offer stability and reliable development feedback to a new outfit. Vesti, on the other hand, is a known quantity in Mercedes’ simulator programme and was runner-up in Formula 2 in 2023, and there is something to be said for giving a young driver a long runway with a team that is building for the future. Russell’s endorsement will not decide anything on its own, but it is unusual for a current driver to make such a public pitch for another team’s vacancy.
The other side of the market came from Esteban Ocon, who has lost his seat at Haas. Ocon revealed that Hamilton was one of only two drivers to contact him afterwards. Their connection goes back to Ocon’s time as a Mercedes junior and reserve, but the detail says more about the paddock than about either man. Drivers spend years racing one another and very little time thinking about what happens when one of them falls out of the sport. Ocon finished 14th in Austin, and his remaining races now carry a weight that results alone will not reflect.
Alpine’s target, Audi’s fine and a knife-edge fight for third
- Alpine’s realistic target: Pierre Gasly has admitted that fifth in the constructors’ championship is a big ask. That is a fair assessment: Alpine sit sixth on 69 points, 33 behind Racing Bulls, and Gasly’s single point in Austin did little to change that. With a 39-point cushion over Haas, sixth is the position to secure, and fifth is something to keep in mind rather than chase.
- Audi’s curious fine: The stewards have fined Audi over a technical breach in Mexico that involved something being physically covered up. Audi sit eighth on 23 points, and their more encouraging story from Austin was Gabriel Bortoleto’s recovery from 21st on the grid to 13th.
- Third place on a knife-edge: Red Bull and McLaren are level on 355 points. Lando Norris (fifth in Austin) and Oscar Piastri (seventh) have been consistent scorers, so Red Bull’s “disconnect” could decide the order by Abu Dhabi.
- MotoGP’s Qatar standoff: In the neighbouring paddock, riders face reports of an unprecedented ban after refusing to race in Qatar. A dispute over a single event can test a series’ authority very quickly.
- Watching in the UK: Channel 4 is showing free-to-air highlights of the Mexico weekend for viewers without a pay-TV subscription.
- Sunday’s likely shape: Expect Ferrari to contest pole and Mercedes to remain the team to beat over the full race distance. The outcome that matters most for the rest of the season, though, is where Hamilton’s power unit leaves him on the grid. If he starts where his pace deserves, the four-way fight for second could have a new leader by Sunday night.