Friday afternoon’s practice session for the Formula 1 Mexico City Grand Prix will incorporate a Pirelli tyre test looking forward to the 2025 season.
A week on from the United States GP in Austin, Texas, F1 is ready to hit Checo Perez country around Mexico City’s Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.
The F1 Sprint format from last weekend is out, and in is a return to relative normality, with three practice sessions building up to qualifying and the Grand Prix.
However, Friday’s FP2 session will be extended to 90 minutes to accommodate a Pirelli “in competition test.”
In the 90-minute session, all competing drivers will test a range of softer compound tyres for Pirelli: a C4, a C5, and a new iteration of tyre, the C6.
The entire session will be “given over” to the test, with all drivers running a mandated run plan to balance short and long runs.
Each driver will be given two additional sets of tyres, one being identical to the standard range offered for the GP weekend (two Hard C3s, three Medium C4s and seven Soft C5s) and the second being the new prototype C6.
Through the run plan, Pirelli will gather data comparing the new tyre with its pre-existing counterpart.
All drivers will run the same amount of laps and the same fuel loads for each run plan (short and long), to keep the test as controlled as possible.
The information gathered during FP2 will then be applied to the post-season test in the days after the F1 season finale at Abu Dhabi.
Multiple drivers granted extra running in Mexico City GP FP2 session
Several drivers will be missing out on FP1 in Mexico this weekend with rookies making an appearance in the opening practice session.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli will replace Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes for his second outing in the W15, following his brief appearance at Monza.
Felipe Drugovich will replace Fernando Alonso at Aston Martin and Robert Shwartzman will replace Zhou Guanyu at Sauber.
To help the seasoned drivers in these scenarios make up for last time in FP1 amid the Pirelli test in FP2, they will be granted an additional 30 minutes after the 60-minute test is concluded.
In addition, these drivers will be handed another set of medium tyres within their allocation.
FP2 will commence at 16:00 local time on Friday, October 25.
READ MORE: Felipe Drugovich to receive Aston Martin FP1 outing in Mexico
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