Mercedes
Russell sat out FP1 for Vesti, who had a good session for the Silver Arrows. Not as good as Antonelli though, who looked quick throughout. He wound up second on the leaderboard in an encouraging display that certainly indicated that Mercedes have a good car for this track. The rookie continued that strong form into the later session, finishing in the top three despite a mechanical issue that curtailed his running in the first 20 minutes. As for Russell, having snuck into the crowd to watch FP1 as a fan, he got back to doing what he does best in FP2 – driving fast. But like Verstappen, he was heard vocally complaining about the grip on the medium tyre.
George Russell – FP2: 1:17.829, P6
“As an F1 driver, you rarely get the chance to go into the grandstands and see the cars on track…as you are usually in the car driving! I took the chance with Fred in the car for FP1 to do just that though and go experience it for myself. It was very enjoyable; it was also good to be able to watch on as Fred did a great job in my place and put us in a strong position to head into FP2.
“After getting back in the car for the second session, we can say that the competitive order looks very close once again. It is a short track, so the margins are going to be small between the whole field. We looked solid on single lap pace, and we know how important qualifying has proved recently in securing a good result on Sunday. All eyes are on that for tomorrow and we will see what we can do. It is certainly going to be close between the top eight cars by the looks of today.”
Kimi Antonelli – FP1: 1:18.487, P2; FP2: 1:17.566, P3
“That was a decent Friday. It’s probably one of the best first days on track I’ve had in a long time. I felt comfortable in the car immediately and was able to get straight on the pace. FP1 was slightly better than FP2; we tried some changes in between the sessions. Some of those changes helped improve the car, others maybe set us back a little bit. We now have the time to work through the data this evening and decide what to keep and what to go back on ahead of FP3.
“I’m looking forward to tomorrow and the rest of the weekend. Our pace looks good in both low and high fuel, but we know the track will continue to improve. It is going to be important to evolve with that, both in my driving and with the car. We will do our best and hopefully can have two more positive days here in Mexico City following our running today.”
Frederik Vesti – FP1: 1:19.689, P14
“It was great to be back in the W16 on the track today. I’ve spent thousands of hours working with the team at Brackley in the simulator to help develop the car alongside George, Kimi, and Valtteri. To get my second experience behind-the-wheel, having driven FP1 in Bahrain, was brilliant. These sessions are so important to help bring additional knowledge to our work at the factories so we can continually improve our correlation.
“The hour on track itself was solid. My laps were consistent and, as a team, we were able to complete our full programme. You always want more laps and to put the fastest possible time on the board, but I got out of the car really happy and satisfied with the job that I did. I’m looking forward to helping the team over the rest of the season now, using what I gained today, as we battle for second in the Constructors’ Championship.”
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director
“The track is always low grip to start Friday practice here, which explains why nine of the 10 teams opted to run a young driver in the first session. For those reasons, George also elected to watch from the sidelines whilst Fred did an excellent job of executing the programme in his car. He finished the session as third fastest rookie but spent the back end of the hour focused on long run work for us on high fuel; he was only bettered by drivers that stayed at low fuel throughout. As a mainstay of our development programme on the simulator, it’s been very useful to give Fred a bit of mileage in the real W16. On Kimi’s side it was encouraging to see him hit the ground running. The car was working reasonably well and he looked very solid on the single lap and long run.
“George returned for FP2 and, as most drivers did, didn’t find the low grip conditions particularly pleasant but still looked to have competitive pace on the single lap and long run. Kimi, with an hour’s running under his belt already, was also strong relative to our competitors and will be looking forward to carrying that form into the rest of the weekend. As the track continues to evolve, we will need to react accordingly but today has been a solid start to our time in Mexico City.”
