Russell tops red-flagged FP1 after Albon/Bearman crash
George Russell went quickest in a twice red-flagged opening practice session at the Mexican Grand Prix, as Alex Albon and Oliver Bearman collided at Turn 9.
Russell set a 1m17.998s on the soft-tyre runs to go three-tenths faster than Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in a stop-start session, with the first interruption coming five minutes in to clear a sliver of debris sat ahead of Turn 1.
Both Albon and Bearman were involved in the second; the Williams driver was on a push lap and caught a slowing Bearman at Turn 9 and lifted off, which caused his car to snap – he clipped the Ferrari reserve driver and went straight on into the wall.
The second red flag produced a 14-minute delay, and practice resumed with 24 minutes left on the clock.
Sainz had led the way after the opening runs on the hard tyre ahead of the second pause, and then continued to headline the session on the soft tyre as he set a 1m18.573s lap to kick off the first performance runs of the weekend.
Russell found almost six-tenths over the Spaniard to go faster, breaking into the 1m17s in the process, although Sainz got closer with a follow-up 1m18.315s time to close the gap.
RB’s Yuki Tsunoda was third fastest in a jumbled order, 0.7 seconds off the pace, while Max Verstappen was a further tenth-and-a-half behind.
The Dutchman reported over the radio that he was suffering with a power unit issue, and slowly made his way back to the pits with over five minutes remaining and took no further part in the session.
Nico Hulkenberg was fifth fastest over Oscar Piastri, who contended that his McLaren felt ‘pretty terrible’ during his soft-tyre runs and subsequently put together a longer hard-tyre stint to gather further data.
Esteban Ocon was seventh, albeit a second off the pace, ahead of the closely-matched Valtteri Bottas, Liam Lawson, and Sergio Perez.
Future Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli enjoyed a longer FP1 session versus his Monza outing, taking Lewis Hamilton’s car to 12th in the order – a tenth behind Franco Colapinto.
Pato O’Ward drove Lando Norris’ car in his home FP1 session and was 13th fastest, while fellow stand-ins Felipe Drugovich (Aston Martin), Robert Shwartzman (Sauber) and Bearman (Ferrari) propped up the order.
