Report: Carlos, Alex and Luke get our Mexican weekend underway
123 laps completed by our trio across two sessions of interrupted running on Friday at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez
Published
30 OCT 2026
Est. reading time
2 min
Practice began in Mexico City with Carlos Sainz and Luke Browning – completing his third FP1 outing of the season – heading out on hard tyres, and with plenty of cars on track from the off, it was quickly a session about finding clean air.
Carlos set a 1:21.525 on his early push for P7, before dropping down the order as the session progressed. At the halfway mark he was P12 on a 1:21.137 and Luke was P19 on a 1:21.948, a gap of 0.811s between them.
Traffic quickly became a big part of Carlos’ FP1 story. He aborted several push laps in a row after finding slower cars in the middle sector and the Turn 4/5/6 section, including a Mercedes of Frederik Vesti and Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar’s Red Bulls, and a Virtual Safety Car for Jack Crawford’s Aston Martin stopping on track further disrupted the session.
With a clear lap at last, Carlos took 1.5s off his previous best with a 1:20.006, which put him P16. Luke continued to improve and finished the session with a 1:20.869 for P20. Between them, the duo completed 64 laps, with Carlos on 31 and Luke on 33.
Alex Albon returned to the car for Practice 2, going out on softs and setting a 1:21.676 as his first time. Carlos set a 1:20.089 on his first timed lap.
The session was soon red-flagged for debris in the stadium section after a collision between Max Verstappen’s Red Bull and Liam Lawson’s Racing Bull.
Another interruption followed shortly afterwards when Lewis Hamilton stopped on track towards the end of the opening sector, prompting a VSC.
Once green flag running resumed, both drivers returned on fresh softs, with Carlos improving to a 1:19.735 and Alex to a 1:20.393. A push for each was then aborted: Carlos ran across the grass at the first chicane, while Alex took a big hit on the kerb at Turn 3.
Back on track, Carlos found 0.775s to run a 1:19.314. Alex followed with a 1:19.640 for P19 and later a 1:19.578, taking back P19 from an Aston Martin on his final qualifying simulation. Carlos improved again to a 1:19.248, which kept him P17.
Both drivers returned to the garage before heading back out for long runs to gather data for Sunday’s race. Carlos completed 28 laps in the FP2 and Alex 31, taking our tally for the day to 123.
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