By: Good evening to all our friends at Formula1.it. It is just after 19:00 in Italy, while in Mexico it is 12:00 noon. We are effectively on Austin time on this final Friday of October. This evening's FP1 will be a particularly unusual one. There will be a huge number of rookies: Frederic Vesti is due to replace Russell at Mercedes, but Antonelli has reportedly been unwell since yesterday. Vesti could take his place at the last minute, allowing Kimi some more time to rest.
Ayumu Iwasa will replace Verstappen at Red Bull, Leonardo Fornaroli will take over Norris's McLaren, while Nikola Tsolov (currently competing in the Formula 2 championship) will have the opportunity to drive and try to impress Racing Bulls' engineers. Tsolov is being assessed for one of the two VCARB seats for 2027. Gabriele Mini, the Italian racing in F2, will get track time with Alpine, Ryo Hirakawa with Haas, and Freddie Slater, the Formula 3 runner-up, will have his chance at Audi. Perhaps alongside Tsolov, Slater is among the most eagerly anticipated talents on track today.
Before we begin our FP1 coverage, let us take a look at Pirelli's tyre allocation for the Mexico City GP: the C3 Hard, C4 Medium and C5 Soft compounds will be available, the softest combination in the range (image: Pirelli graphic).
Pit lane opens: 19:30 Italian time. Live coverage from 19:15.
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Photo: X, Ferrari
All the news, photos, weather, session times and times from the Mexican GP 2026
