Traditionally, the Mexico City Grand Prix sees a rush of rookies participating in FP1, with several drivers on the current grid having made their first public F1 appearances at the track in previous seasons.
This year brought a bumper crop of 10 youngsters running in Friday’s opening session, with only Ferrari fielding both of their race drivers.
The group included some familiar faces, several of whom have participated in FP1 sessions across multiple seasons. Inevitably, the focus was on the three making their first public appearance in a current F1 car – particularly one driver who remains a genuine contender for a 2027 race seat.
Tsolov takes his chance
Racing Bulls boss Alan Permane made it clear a few weeks ago that F2 star Nikola Tsolov is in the frame alongside Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad. Inevitably, that added another layer of intrigue to the Bulgarian’s public debut.
However, speaking to F1 TV, Permane stressed that the day was not a shootout.
“I said to him look, this isn’t an audition, this isn’t a rehearsal or anything like that,” Permane noted. “We know he’s got pace, we know he’s fast – we see that in F2. And I said to him what we’re looking for is your feedback. We want to hear what you’ve got to say about the car. We want to hear about what you’ve got to say about the changes we make to the car, and then we want to hear how you are in the debrief.”
Having already gained some mileage in TPC running at Imola, Tsolov enjoyed a clean session and finished P12, just 0.126s shy of Lindblad.
“I think I was ready for it,” Tsolov said. “To be honest, I didn’t really think about it too much, didn’t really stress it, so I managed to arrive in a calm mental state.
“I don’t have any reference. So, for me, it’s just what it is. They’ve done already 20 rounds, so they kind of maybe felt different to the other places with the altitude, but definitely all the electric part of the car and the engine was something that I really had to get used to, and it’s something very new for me.
“So, I think I can do a lot better – just keep on building onto that and learning more about how everything works.”
For Tsolov’s F2 rival Gabriele Mini, Friday marked a first appearance in the Alpine A526 after TPC running in July. The Italian finished P14, with a best lap 0.756s slower than team mate Pierre Gasly.
“Both the team and I are pretty happy about how everything went,” Mini said. “We got a bit unlucky with the VSC timing at the end, which really didn’t allow us to do any push laps on soft, just one.”
If Audi are proven to be correct regarding Freddie Slater, his appearance will be remembered as the F1 debut of a future talent. Not only did the Briton only turn 18 in July, but he has also yet to race an F2 car, so this was quite a step for him.
His session was ultimately blighted by issues beyond his control, with an error in the garage seeing him leave the pit lane with a cooling fan still attached and blocking a radiator inlet – an incident that later earned Audi a €7,500 fine.
Slater only got a brief unrepresentative run at the end of the session and had to settle for P21 with a best time more than 1.3s off Nico Hulkenberg’s best. Given his youth, he remained remarkably philosophical about the experience.
“At the end of the day, it’s motorsport, and that’s how things go,” the F3 runner up said. “We’re a team, and we win as a team, and we lose as a team. So of course, it was a bit frustrating, obviously, not to get many laps.
“But overall, that one lap that I did do was actually pretty good compared to relevant data. And a historic day for Audi to have their first junior driver in the car. It’s a very special day, so we look at the positives.”
The young Briton gets another chance to showcase his talents with another practice appearance scheduled for Sao Paulo next week.
Vesti impresses with third
Of those with previous FP1 experience, the standout performer was Fred Vesti, making his third outing for Mercedes in Mexico City after appearances in 2023 and 2025.
The Dane finished the session in P3, just 0.074s shy of World Champion-elect Kimi Antonelli.
Vesti may be operating somewhat under the radar given that he has no obvious path to an F1 race seat. However, after the session he made the surprise revelation that he is chasing one and thus Friday was “perfect timing.” The Brackley team certainly knows his value.
“Every time he gets in the car and does an FP1, he steps it up a level,” said Deputy Team Principal Bradley Lord. “And that was his most convincing FP1 so far.
“I think you can see that he’s a guy who, away from this paddock, is racing regularly, obviously an IMSA champion as well, and is able to step in and ready to race at any point. So, a really good job.”
The only rookie to outpace his team mate was Red Bull’s Ayamu Iwasa in P5, six places and 0.432s ahead of Isack Hadjar. The comparison was skewed by power unit issues that compromised the Frenchman’s session, but nevertheless it was a solid performance from the Super Formula star.
Having missed out on a 2027 Haas race seat, Iwasa’s countryman Ryo Hirakawa also had a good session as he logged P15, 0.570s shy of Ollie Bearman.
Mixed fortunes for the rest
Mexico was a third FP1 outing of the year for McLaren’s Leonardo Fornaroli following Barcelona and Budapest. It was a frustrating session for the Italian as he ran off track more than once, flat spotting his soft tyres in the process. The 2023 F3 and 2024 F2 champion ultimately finished P17.
“Overall, it was a tricky session,” Fornaroli said. “Of course, it was a new track for me, and it wasn’t easy to build confidence. It was very low grip, especially at the start of the session, and then putting temperature into the tyres was very hard as well.
“I had a front lock up straight away into T1 because I didn’t manage to put the right temperature into the front tyres, and this, of course, compromised the whole soft run and performance in general.”
Jak Crawford enjoyed his fourth FP1 run of 2026 with Aston Martin and he appeared to have inherited Lance Stroll’s luck with unreliability when he stopped on track with an ERS issue after running just 15 laps. That left the American in P19, one spot ahead of Luke Browning, who was enjoying his third outing with Williams.
At the bottom of the times in P22 was Colton Herta in Valtteri Bottas‘ Cadillac, as the American continues his push towards securing the all-important Super Licence.
“I was under the impression coming in this weekend if I do this, I get the Super Licence,” Herta said. “So, I guess I have to wait and see. For me the biggest thing has been to not worry about that stuff and just drive the car.
“And so that’s kind of what I’ve focused on all year, because it has been a discussion in my career for a lot of years now. And I just try to drive the car and do what I can do.”
