Mexico FP2:
Seeking Limits

Seeking Limits

It's friday afternoon in Mexico city, with most teams testing out their long run pace as these weather conditions will be similar to what we will see on raceday. Drivers seeking the limits with a full tank and older tires especially the Turn 9 to 12 Combinations where almost all drivers went wide or straight on heading for the escape road. Max Verstappen set the fastest lap with a 1.17.392. Complaining over the radio that it felt “like he drove on ice”, this might have been because of Red Bull testing a new floor, as they have been doing runs with the green “flowvis paint” to help them see what its effect is, we’ll have to see if it brings any improvement.

Seeking limits Lando Norris was, going wide in turn 11 while trying out different lines. Teammate Piastri only finished 12th with still a bit of work to do ahead of Sunday. Charles Leclerc showed some very promising race pace, trying out all the different compounds while finishing second. Only 2 tenths behind Leclerc we see Kimi Antonelli, setting the third fastest lap, while being held up by traffic on occasions, still a solid session nonetheless. Finishing off the top 10 we see Lance Stroll, interestingly the entire top 10 finished within 6 tenths of each other, hopefully meaning that we’ll see close battles in the race.

Apart from going wide or missing a brake point, there was only one driver hitting the wall, Alex Albon exiting the final corner clipped the wall with his left-rear but was able to continue his way.

So with the Friday sessions done we predicted a close qualifying and race as the longruns all were pretty close to each other. Teams and drivers are still getting to grips with the circumstances at these high altitudes.