Key events
Let’s have a look at the drivers’ standings, with less than 10 minutes to Q1:
1 Kimi Antonelli 🇮🇹 Mercedes 365pts
2 George Russell 🇬🇧 Mercedes 242
3 Lewis Hamilton 🇬🇧 Ferrari 241
4 Max Verstappen 🇳🇱 Red Bull 236
5 Charles Leclerc 🇲🇨 Ferrari 233
6 Lando Norris 🇬🇧 McLaren 211
7 Oscar Piastri 🇦🇺 McLaren 144
8 Isack Hadjar 🇫🇷 Red Bull 105
9 Liam Lawson 🇳🇿 Racing Bulls 77
10 Pierre Gasly 🇫🇷 Alpine 42
11 Arvid Lindblad 🇬🇧 Racing Bulls 38
12 Franco Colapinto 🇦🇷 Alpine 27
13 Oliver Bearman 🇬🇧 Haas 23
14 Nico Hülkenberg 🇩🇪 Audi 13
15 Gabriel Bortoleto 🇧🇷 Audi 10
16 Esteban Ocon 🇫🇷 Haas 7
17 Fernando Alonso 🇪🇸 Aston Martin 7
18 Carlos Sainz 🇪🇸 Williams 7
19 Alexander Albon 🇹🇭 Williams 5
20 Yuki Tsunoda 🇯🇵 Racing Bulls 1
Yet to score:
Lance Stroll 🇨🇦 Aston Martin
Valtteri Bottas 🇫🇮 Cadillac
Sergio Pérez 🇲🇽 Cadillac
Ryo Hirakawa 🇯🇵 Haas
Mekies is doing his best to downplay suggestions that Verstappen could come to the team and urge them not to give Lawson a seat next year.
Live, Laurent Mekies is talking Lawson-Verstappen. Naturally enough the Red Bull principal is playing the incident down.
On the track, meanwhile, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc topped both of Friday’s practice sessions, but it was a different story on Saturday:
Lando Norris, who won last year’s race from pole position, topped the times ahead of his probable successor Kimi Antonelli by just 0.001sec in Saturday’s final practice at the Mexico City Grand Prix. The 26-year-old Briton clocked a fastest lap in his McLaren in 1min 17.600sec while the 20-year-old Italian recorded 1:17.601 for Mercedes. He finished ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc as he seeks to become the sport’s youngest champion and Italy’s first since 1953.
Leclerc was fastest in both sessions on Friday and topped most of FP3 on mediums before the teams switched to soft tyres.
Oscar Piastri was fourth in the second McLaren ahead of Red Bull’s disgruntled four-time champion Max Verstappen, who complained his brakes were not working, the seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton in the second Ferrari and George Russell in the second Mercedes.
Isack Hadjar was eighth in the second Red Bull ahead of the two Racing Bulls of Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad. AFP
Back to Red Bull, where Isack Hadjar was put on the naughty step by the stewards:
Isack Hadjar was given a formal warning on Saturday after the Red Bull driver pushed away a Formula One guest in the Mexico City Grand Prix paddock. The Frenchman was hurrying to first practice on Friday but stopped to have a photograph with a young fan when he was approached by a man in what stewards, who summoned Hadjar to a hearing, said was an “aggressive manner“.
“One security person was walking behind him and was unable to intervene and prevent what was tantamount to an invasion of the driver’s private space,” the stewards said. “The driver initially resisted the move by placing his hand on the waist of the guest, holding him at bay, then the driver pushed him aside with his open right hand.“
The stewards said Hadjar was in breach of the regulations but considered various factors in mitigation, including that the action was uninvited and aggressive, that the driver did not have sufficient security and that others had experienced problems in moving through the paddock. Reuters
Lawson’s seat at Racing Bulls is in doubt for next season, but Estaban Ocon has lost his at Haas for this weekend, as well as being on his way in the winter. Our Giles Richards reports:
Before any running on Saturday had begun the Haas team made a shock decision to drop their driver Esteban Ocon from competing in the race weekend. The Frenchman was replaced in qualifying by the reserve driver Ryo Hirakawa. The 32-year-old Japanese driver, who has won two World Endurance Championships and the Le Mans 24 Hours, will make his F1 race debut on Sunday.
Ocon is set to be replaced next season by the Ferrari junior Rafael Camara and his sudden removal from competition in Mexico suggests relations between him and the team have broken down. He had an angry exchange with his race engineer, Laura Müller, during FP2 on Friday, after which he returned to the Haas garage without removing his helmet.
The team issued a statement saying the switch had been made but would not elaborate on whether Ocon would return for the four remaining races, only adding that: “No comment beyond the statement other than to confirm it’s not due to illness.”
It has been an unusually feisty buildup to qualifying. Liam Lawson and Max Verstappen have both been knocked down a place on the grid after a coming together in FP1 that left the Dutchman in combative mood:
Red Bulls’ Verstappen was embroiled in an incident that left him with damaged bodywork, tangling with Racing Bulls’ Lawson in a feisty fight for track position going into the Foro Sol section.
Verstappen said New Zealand’s Lawson caused the trouble near turn 12, their minor collision spewing debris over the circuit and causing a red flag so the track could be cleared.
“It was not unlucky,” said the Dutchman. “It was not very smart behaviour by him in what he was trying to do there. But it is not going to change my weekend.”
Both drivers were summoned by the stewards, who found they behaved in a manner that was “unacceptable” and handed out the penalty.
“I think it is just not very smart behaviour when you are fighting for your seat,” Verstappen said, a reference to Lawson’s admission this week that he does not know if he will retain his place next season with Racing Bulls, despite an impressive season with the sister team to Red Bull. AFP
Half an hour till we are off.
Preamble
After last week’s rehearsal in Austin, Kimi Antonelli is going to become world champion this weekend provided he reaches the chequered flag on Sunday. Indeed, he may well do so even if he pulls up before the first corner. To take the title by his own efforts he need only finish in the top nine; if he crashes out on lap one, he will still be crowned if neither George Russell nor Lewis Hamilton wins.
A world champion at 20. OK, he’s no Luke Littler. But if he completes the job tomorrow, at 20 years, two months and seven days, he will be two months and 16 days inside the heavyweight boxing record set by Mike Tyson. And let’s be honest, he looks a lot younger than Littler now, despite being five months older, and younger today than the darts maestro did at 17.
Giles Richards in Mexico City has been looking at the mounting fiesta and its causes:
To trust the youngster’s instincts and talent, when the temptation to micromanage him must have been overwhelming, has worked brilliantly. Even as the opposition caught and at times surpassed Mercedes, Antonelli was able to deliver when a win was not on the table. When it was, as at the last round in Austin, he stepped up to sweep it away with a nonchalance that typified why he is world champion elect.
This makes the atmosphere in Mexico City all the more febrile in what is already one of the most vibrant venues on the calendar. Antonelli could barely have chosen a better location to enjoy the celebration of his childhood dream. The fans here embrace F1 with the same passion the Italian has for his trade.
With the race coinciding with Mexico’s Day of the Dead, the city and the paddock are adorned with the bright orange Mexican marigolds, the “flor de muerto”. Skulls and skeletons, candles and colour are plentiful to welcome the return of the departed in a joyful, festival lending the weekend an already celebratory air.
All hail the Mercedes wonder. But it’s not all about him. It may not be what he wanted, but George Russell is fighting for second, his best championship finish. McLaren, constructors’ champions in the past two seasons, are in fourth on countback, tied with Red Bull. Liam Lawson, brutally demoted by Red Bull last season, is fighting for his Racing Bulls seat, apparently. At the back of the grid, Ryo Hirakawa, the Haas reserve driver, is making his debut after Esteban Ocon was stood down.
So join me from 8.30pm to the buildup to qualifying. For now, here is Giles’s full report:
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