Mexico City GP FP3 analysis: Norris by a thousandth, Antonelli’s ideal lap fastest

Lando Norris set the fastest lap of the weekend so far in the last practice session in Mexico City: 1:17.600, just 0.001 seconds ahead of Kimi Antonelli. Charles Leclerc was third, 0.117 behind. On a track at 44 to 49°C, against 31 to 37°C on Friday evening, the top ten were covered by 0.537 seconds, and Antonelli’s best sectors added up to the fastest lap of anyone.

This analysis uses every lap of FP3 from our f1live timing data: lap and sector times, speed traps, stints, weather, race control messages and the team radio clips published by Formula 1, which we transcribed. It compares them with FP2. The classification is provisional. Qualifying starts at 15:00 local time (21:00 UTC). Each of the four charts can be shared on its own.

One thousandth of a second

Every driver set his best lap on soft tyres, in the second half of the hour, so FP3 was a qualifying rehearsal. Norris’s 1:17.600 came on his 23rd lap and beat Leclerc’s FP2 benchmark (1:17.827). Antonelli, who can clinch the title on Sunday, was 0.001 behind on his 18th lap. Below the top four, Verstappen, Hamilton, Russell, Hadjar, Lawson and Lindblad were separated by 0.186 seconds. Hülkenberg led the rest in eleventh, almost a second off. Sergio Pérez, at his home race and on the eve of his 300th Grand Prix, and Gabriel Bortoleto set no timed lap. Bortoleto told his team there was “something wrong with my engine”. The timing data shows a single lap on softs for Pérez and gives no reason.

Sectors: Antonelli had the most in hand

Leclerc set the best first sector (27.032) and the best third sector, the stadium section (19.858). Antonelli was fastest in the middle sector (30.436), where Leclerc lost 0.295 seconds. Adding up each driver’s three best sectors gives an ideal lap: 1:17.422 for Antonelli, 0.179 faster than his actual lap, against 1:17.520 for Norris and 1:17.621 for Leclerc. Piastri, Verstappen and Russell set their best three sectors on the same lap. Russell lost 0.484 to his teammate in sector 2 and 0.238 to Leclerc in sector 3, the biggest gaps in the top eight.

From FP2 to FP3: who found time

FP2 ran in the evening with the track cooling from 37.2 to 31.4°C. FP3 ran in late morning with the track warming from 43.8 to 48.6°C. Despite that, nine of the top ten went faster. Piastri found the most time (0.674 seconds), then Antonelli and Hamilton (0.443 each) and Norris (0.330). Leclerc, the fastest driver on Friday, improved by only 0.110. Russell was the exception: his 1:18.107 was 0.174 slower than in FP2, and he dropped from third to seventh. Gasly (+0.267), Alonso (+0.254) and Bottas (+0.177) were also slower than on Friday.

Top speed: Mercedes catch up, Aston Martin drop

On Friday, Mercedes were the slowest team through the speed trap at 347 km/h. In FP3, Russell and Antonelli both reached 350 km/h, and ten teams were within 4 km/h of each other (347 to 351). Gasly’s Alpine was fastest at 351. Most other teams were slower than on Friday: Racing Bulls dropped from 355 to 350 and McLaren from 354 to 350. Aston Martin fell furthest: no reading above 339 km/h, against 352 on Friday. Alonso told his team he had “no power into 1”, the braking zone at the end of the main straight, and that his downshifts had not worked. Stroll was called in for an issue during the session.

Radio and track limits

The session had no red flag and no Virtual Safety Car. Race Control deleted more than 20 lap times for track limits, the most at Turn 1. The radio told a less calm story. Bearman, who had called the Haas “quite competitive in low speed” on Thursday, said: “I just hate the way this car feels in low speed. We’ll have to have a good look over it before qualifying.” Hadjar called his Red Bull “the worst car I’ve driven this weekend so far”, and Verstappen complained about his brakes. Ryo Hirakawa drove the second Haas instead of Esteban Ocon and finished nineteenth.

Sources

Classification, laps, sectors, speed traps, stints, weather and race control: f1live laps, stints, weather and race control messages for FP3 (session 11399), compared with FP2 (session 11398). Classification provisional.

Team radio: the clips listed by f1live team radio, published by Formula 1 and transcribed by us. Method: in 38 laps the feed shifted the sector times by one position; we rebuilt them from the lap time and only kept sectors that add up to the lap. Thursday quotes come from the FIA press conference transcript.