Lando Norris topped the time sheets in the final hour of practice at the Mexico City Grand Prix, putting just one thousandth of a second between himself and Kimi Antonelli.
Lando Norris barely bested Kimi Antonelli in FP3 in Mexico City in the final practice session before qualifying. Antonelli was second fastest, with Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri, and Max Verstappen rounding out the top five.
FP3 as it happened
In a shock mid-weekend driver change, Ryō Hirakawa took to the track in Esteban Ocon’s Haas, set to replace the Frenchman for the rest of the Mexico City GP weekend. The reason for the decision was unclear, but follows speculation of a tense atmosphere in the team after Haas did not renew Ocon’s contract for 2027 in favour of Rafael Camara. Hirakawa took part in FP1 this weekend as part of the rookie practice session, so already had some track time under his belt in preparation for qualifying later in the day.
Hirakawa was first out, running some practice procedures whilst the track was quiet. He was joined by Gabriel Bortoleto who complained of an engine issue before heading back to the pitlane with smoke coming from the back of his Audi.
Fernando Alonso went off track at Turn 2 with an engine problem, bringing out a brief yellow flag. There was a mixture of soft and medium tyres being run in the first quarter of the session, and Pierre Gasly was fastest so far with a 1:19.304 before Antonelli put in a 1:18.754.
A few other drivers seemed to be struggling to keep their cars on track, namely Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris both exploring the run-off areas. Despite his excursion on the previous lap, Leclerc went on to top Antonelli’s time by three hundredths of a second. Leclerc could be a potential thorn in Antonelli’s side if the Mercedes driver wants a pole and a win on the weekend he is set to become champion, as Ferrari seem to be the car to beat in Mexico.
30 minutes down, 30 minutes to go
At the halfway point of FP3, it was the other Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton with the fastest time of a 1:18.162. Sergio Perez had not set a time, and an update from Cadillac strongly suggested the Mexican driver would not be back out on track as the team needed to make a change to his power unit. Gabriel Bortoleto was in the same boat; after his technical issue at the beginning of the session, Audi elected to change his power unit and prepare the car for later on.
The top teams were yet to start their soft tyre runs to get some more representative times for qualifying. George Russell was one of the first to go out for the final flying laps. The British driver had struggled to make much of an impression thus far in the session, only going fastest by a few hundredths from the Ferrari’s medium tyre lap and complaining of a lack of grip in his rears.
Mclaren seemed to be going well, both Norris and Piastri within two tenths of Kimi Antonelli. Norris already showed a glimpse of pace in FP2 where he finished second fastest, but Piastri had lagged behind in tenth. Verstappen, rounding out the top 5 with two minutes to go, was on the radio complaining about his brakes not working.
Norris pulled a 1:17.600 out of the bag in his final run, 0.001 seconds faster than his championship successor to-be and taking the top spot for the session.
Discussion about this post