#MexicanGP FP1: @ValtteriBottas leads @MercedesAMGF1 one-two. #F1

Valtteri Bottas lead from team-mate Lewis Hamilton in a Mercedes one-two in FP1 at the Mexican GP with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen third.

Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez, missed most of the opening hour practice session after crashing at the Peraltada corner during the early proceedings and breaking the rear wing of his Honda-powered RB16B racer, just as Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc had done.

The early running at the famous Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez saw large levels of dust as the cars swept the green track, which had not been used for 18 months, with drivers reporting reduced visibility over their respective team radios.

The teams were split on their tyre usage during the early stages – with the Mercedes pairing running the softs and Red Bull sending theirs on the C2 white-marked hards – whilst the others ran the C3 yellow-branded medium rubber.

Alfa Romeo Racing’s Kimi Raikkonen lead the pack out of pit-lane and posted the first benchmark of a 1:30.060 on the harder tyres, which was dropped significantly.

Haas F1 Team’s Mick Schumacher, the other Alfa of Antonio Giovinazzi and McLaren’s Lando Norris all demoted Raikkonen down the time-sheets as they all enjoyed brief moments on the top on the medium, soft and hard compounds respectively, before Bottas hit a 1:21.327 at the end of the first five minutes.

Home favourite Perez then put Red Bull in P1 with a 1:21.301 on the harder rubber, before Bottas responded moments later on a 1:20.459.

At the opening ten-minute mark, both Leclerc and Perez suffered crashes at the Peraltada exiting the stadium section, with the session under caution due to the deployment of the virtual safety car to allow the debris from their separate incidents to cleared.

Leclerc lost the rear of his SF21 racer when he clipped the outside kerb at the beginning of the Peraltada and it swung around to the right, which meant the Monegasque-youngster slid off backwards at low-speed and hit the barriers, breaking the right rear end-plate of his rear wing.

Perez had a higher-speed off after the Mexican too turned in from the kerbs, but as the Red Bull driver caught a snap of over-steer, his RB16B racer snapped a second time, left, and spun around fast, destroying half of his rear wing off in the incident.

Both drivers made it back to the pits where they spent nearly half the session undergoing repairs.

On track at the 15th-minute mark, after AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly jumped to the top of the pile on a 1:20.316, Hamilton suffered a front-right lock up approaching turn one and the Briton went for an excursion in the deep run-off area and grass behind the second corner.

The Mercedes driver cut the grass, but did not go to the left of the bollard at the apex of turn two, with Hamilton now currently under investigation from the stewards for not going around it.

After his off-track moment, Hamilton then switched fastest efforts at the head of the order with championship-rival Verstappen, the latter bettering Gasly’s benchmark with a 1:20.214 whilst still using the hards with 40 minutes remaining.

Hamilton, still running the softs, then set a 1:20.085, to which Verstappen struck back with a 1:19.826 five minutes later and then the seven-time world champion grabbed P1 back on a 1:19.781.

After a brief period of no track action around the mid-way point, all cars switched to the C4 softs (some went back to the harder rubber in the closing stages of FP1) for a series of qualifying simulation stints.

Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz went fastest on a 1:9.470 before Bottas used his fresher softs to reclaim top spot on a 1:18.834, with Verstappen moving back into P1 before the 40th-minute mark posting a 1:18.464.

After Perez and Leclerc returned to the track following their repairs in the next few minutes, Bottas went for another flyer and set what was the quickest time of the session, a 1:18.341.

With over ten minutes left in the session, Hamilton moved into second place in the order, 0.076 seconds off Bottas’ Mexican GP FP1 benchmark, with Verstappen demoted to third and 0.123 seconds adrift of the Finn.

Perez made his way up to fourth by the session’s end, with the local favourite still struggling his over-steer in the closing stages, with Gasly completing the top five and in-front of Sainz and Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso.

Leclerc wounded up eighth and ahead of the second Alpine of Esteban Ocon who was ninth and Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel who rounded out the top ten.

Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda ended opening practice in 11th and in-front of the aforementioned Raikkonen who was 12th and is also currently under investigation by the stewards for failing to go around the second corner bollard during his off-track moment.

Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll was 13th in the time-sheets and ahead of McLaren pairing Daniel Ricciardo and Norris who were 14th and 15th respectively with Giovinazzi 16th in the other Alfa C41 entry.

Williams Racing’s George Russell and Nicholas Latifi were 17th and 18th respectively with Haas F1 Team duo Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin bringing up the rear.

Some breaking news during the session was that AlphaTauri’s Tsunoda and Aston Martin’s Stroll will be taking on new power-unit components and are set to start at the back of the grid for Sunday’s Mexico City Grand Prix.

Both Tsunoda and Stroll are given a fourth Internal Combustion Engine, Turbocharger and MGU-H from their respective Manufacturers Honda and Mercedes whilst the former takes on a fourth MGU-K system and the latter a third Control Electronics Unit.

You can see the full Formula 1 Gran Premio De La Ciudad De Mexico 2021 Free Practice 1 Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2021/races/1103/mexico/practice-1.html

#Formula1 #MexicoCity Grand Prix 2021 Preview. #F1 #MexicanGP