2025 F1 Mexico City Grand Prix - Friday Practice as it happened

Thanks for joining us for today's practice action. We will be back to bring you live updates and commentary from final practice and qualifying in Mexico. 

FP3 takes place at 6.30pm UK time, with qualifying coming at 10pm. 

History is also in Verstappen's favour, with the Dutchman winning three of the past five races in Mexico City. 

• 2024 – Carlos Sainz (Ferrari)
• 2023 – Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
• 2022 – Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
• 2021 – Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
• 2019 – Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)

An intriguing Friday at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Verstappen wound up fastest over a single lap, while McLaren appeared to be off the pace, with Norris 0.251s adrift of the Red Bull driver in fourth, behind both Leclerc and Antonelli. 

Piastri was eight tenths back in 12th in the other McLaren, who definitely have some work to do with their qualifying laps. 

However, things look much better in high-fuel running for McLaren. 

Not only does Norris hold the edge over Piastri on a single lap, he has also been lapping a couple of tenths quicker than his McLaren teammate and chief rival consistently in the high-fuel running. 

Verstappen is not happy on the medium compound right now, comparing it to being "like driving on ice".

Interestingly, Piastri is sticking with soft tyres for his high-fuel runs. Are McLaren trying to find an early advantage here by doing something different? 

The qualifying simulation runs have finished, and the drivers are now switching focus onto their race pace for Sunday's Grand Prix. 

Hamilton finally gets a clean lap on softs in and goes fifth, exactly three tenths behind Verstappen and 0.147s adrift of Ferrari teammate Leclerc.

Antonelli goes third for Mercedes, 0.174s off the pace. A good lap from the Italian rookie, who is ahead of teammate Russell, though it is worth nothing Antonelli set his lap later. 

Norris has gone for another soft tyre qualifying simulation run and goes third. He's still 0.251s off the pace, but that is better from McLaren. 

Verstappen goes 0.153s clear of Leclerc as he now takes top spot for the first time today. 

Leclerc is second, ahead of Russell and Verstappen's Red Bull teammate Tsunoda, with Sainz rounding out the top five ahead of the struggling McLarens. 

Not sure what happened to Hamilton as we weren't riding onboard during his soft tyre lap, but he did not improve and is 11th. It looks like he's had an issue in the final sector somewhere. 

The McLarens are off the pace on their first soft tyre laps. 

Norris goes second ahead of Norris but both are over six tenths off the pace. They are then shuffled down to fourth and fifth as Russell and Sainz go second and third respectively. 

Leclerc has just produced a 1m17.545s to smash his previous benchmark on soft tyres. 

Albon has just touched the wall coming out of the final corner on a lap that saw him improve to seventh. He appears to have got away with it, however!

After spending the last seven or eight minutes stuck in the back of the Mercedes garage, Antonelli has gone back out. Mercedes must be confident whatever issue he had is now resolved. Good news!

It looks as though Antonelli's early problem has returned, having seemingly fixed itself. The Italian rookie has been wheeled back into the Mercedes garage and an investigation into the issue has begun. 

It was close! But Leclerc has just found three tenths' improvement to pull a comfortable margin to the rest with a 1m18.353s. That's just a fraction slower than his FP1 benchmark and we haven't seen the soft tyres out yet for the frontrunners.

Hamilton goes for another lap and improves his time to jump back into third, just 0.020s behind Leclerc. That lap included a purple first sector. 

Piastri also finds time but stays fourth, though it is very close, with the top four separated by just 0.085s. 

Leclerc, who set the pace in FP1, goes quickest in his Ferrari. Lando Norris slots into P2, just 0.012s behind Leclerc.

Piastri goes third, two tenths behind teammate and championship rival Norris, with Verstappen putting his Red Bull fourth.

After running wide on his first timed lap, Lewis Hamilton went third, but was quickly shuffled down to fifth after Piastri and Verstappen beat his time. 

The seven-time world champion is nearly half a second adrift of teammate Leclerc. All of these tyres have been set on mediums. 

We will see drivers running medium and hard tyres for the opening 15 minutes or so of FP2, before switching onto softs for qualifying simulations ahead of qualifying tomorrow. 

Following that, the rest of second practice will be dedicated to long runs. 

However, Aston Martin have gone against the norm by sending both Alonso and Stroll out on softs. 

So much for that problem! Kimi Antonelli's car seems to be all okay as he goes fastest, ahead of Norris and Verstappen. 

"I have an issue. Limp home it's saying," Kimi Antonelli reports to his Mercedes team over team radio.