by A fifth of the Formula 1 field was replaced by FP1 rookies at the Mexican Grand Prix – the most important of which was a second chance for Kimi Antonelli to gain a clean lead in Formula 1 with Mercedes in early 2025.
Antonelli and fellow FP1 newcomers Ollie Bearman (Ferrari), Pato O’Ward (McLaren), Felipe Drugovich (Aston Martin) and Robert Shwartzman (Sauber) were closely watched by The Race’s Scott Mitchell-Malm and Edd Straw in Mexico on Friday .
Here’s what they found out and how the rookies thought about their chance to shine:
Kimi Antonelli
Kimi Antonelli’s second public F1 outing was more low-key than his much-hyped debut in Italy, and that’s exactly how he and Mercedes wanted it. As he put it: “I rode a lot smoother today.”
The 18-year-old took over Lewis Hamilton’s car and fulfilled the most important criterion that he failed to achieve in Monza by not crashing. There was a brief scare when he drove over debris, which led to an early red flag and caused him some damage to the ground, but that was bad luck as he didn’t see it. Otherwise it was a reassuringly straightforward session.
“I didn’t want to take any risks, I just wanted a clean session, just to do a few laps and understand the car and the tires a little better,” said Antonelli. “Overall it was pretty decent. I felt like I wasn’t at my limit, it was just because it was my decision.”
The 18-year-old’s focus early on was on longer runs on the hard tires. After having to abort his first lap due to the red flag raised just before crossing the finish line, he returned to the track after the interruption for three consecutive laps of pushing.
He was visibly approaching a track he had never driven before, and feedback from engineer Pete “Bono” Bonnington over the radio indicated that the braking for Turn 1 and the speed he was driving through the corners in the In the middle of the round, the most important opportunities for improvement were not correct. That was a central theme of the meeting.
The second red flag had no direct effect on him as he had not yet returned to the track, although it did cost him some track time. In total he managed three runs on the hard tires, but the first was interrupted by the red flag. Over the course of these runs he was able to work on more than just the details of his driving, first 30mm long as he entered the pits, then 30mm short, then 10mm short and then on.
With 13 minutes to go he set off for his performance runs on soft tires, which gave him the chance for two fast laps. The first was his fastest, a time of 1:19.200 – 1.202 seconds off pace.
After the first attempt, he was told that “the biggest losses are the braking in Turn 1 and Turn 4, about a tenth each, and then from the high speed 7 to 11, with about three to four tenths lost.” Later asked It turned out that it was the mid-corner speed in Turn 7 and Turn 10 that he needed to improve.
After a brief rollover at the pit exit after a practice start, he crossed the checkered flag without completing another push lap before returning to the start/finish straight to complete a well-executed practice start from the grid.
“I tried to build confidence lap by lap and also it was my first time on the track so I tried to learn as much as I could,” Antonelli said. “Of course the jump in grip on the soft tires was quite large, also because I was doing consecutive laps on the hard tires, so I couldn’t really try out the single lap work. So I went on the soft tires and felt a lot more grip, but didn’t really use them as I was really surprised by the amount of grip.”
Comparisons with his teammate are meaningless given the different specifications of the cars, with Russell in the pre-Grand Prix Belgian spot due to his qualifying accident in Austin. But after his nightmare at Monza, this was exactly the FP1 outing Antonelli and Mercedes needed. -Edd Straw
Ollie Bearman
Bearman’s standing at Ferrari has long been evident and the team’s veteran engineer Jock Clear made the point before FP1 when he said Ferrari no longer wanted the young driver, who already has two F1 race starts under his belt “pampered”.
He had a decent job to do in Mexico, completing Charles Leclerc’s usual program, but thanks to an early red flag and a bizarre accident involving Alex Albon, he had little chance of doing any of it.
Bearman’s first few laps were on hard tires with aero rakes attached, then he stayed on hard tires after the brief break in the session. Consecutive push laps only yielded a time of 1m21.256s, and then he was hit by Albon on a cooldown lap.
It’s quite an impact 😳
Albon hits Bearman’s Ferrari at high speed, hits the front left and spins into the wall 💥
Neither car will play any further role in the session.#F1 #MexicoGP pic.twitter.com/rPgYMh7G0w
— Formula 1 (@F1) October 25, 2024
If there is criticism Where Bearman tried to let Albon through, then it was supposed to be referred to Ferrari’s radio messages as the team’s radio communication was somewhat lacking.
Bearman had let Oscar Piastri pass just before the final straight and all he was told was: “The next car is Albon.” But he was not given a lead and was as good as at the end of that short straight when Albon was at the end of the previous curve was just visible in the rearview mirrors.
The next message Bearman received after “The next car is Albon” only came as Albon approached – and he was told “The next car is O’Ward”, again showing a lack of Ferrari sharpness. So it seemed Bearman couldn’t do anything about where Albon caught him and in a tough situation he tried to get out of the way as much as possible.
Unsurprisingly, Bearman sounded absolutely disbelieving and confused as to how the collision could have happened. A very gentle and helpless “He hit me.” the impression of such genuine perplexity that he perhaps even began to wonder if he had somehow made a huge mistake.
The stewards agreed that this was not the case. -Scott Mitchell Malm
PATO O’WARD
IndyCar star O’Ward was entrusted with Lando Norris’ new car and the improved surface for part of the session. As he explained after a clean session, he was given a simple instruction: “Don’t maneuver the car, if you try to drive too fast I’ll yell at you and we need information.”
This meant he had to abandon his usual approach, which he characterized as “I find the limit of the car by going beyond it,” to ensure he provided the necessary information. And that’s exactly what he did, completing 21 laps and finishing the session 13thTh Fastest, 1.297 seconds off the pace and 0.337 seconds behind teammate Oscar Piastri.
This outing is the closest thing to a home run for O’Ward, hence the tremendous reaction from the crowd. And in the third FP1 appearance of his career, he did exactly the job that McLaren asked of him. – IT
ROBERT SHWARTZMAN
Shwartzman made his second FP1 appearance of the season, but he will likely be best remembered for receiving a five-place grid penalty, which he will never serve, for catching Yuki Tsunoda under yellow flags “while with “was traveling at high speed” overtook me.
He drove Zhou Guanyu’s car and finished the session in 19th placeTh in a session that proved frustrating as two red flag stoppages marred the running schedule, which inevitably focused on aerodynamic testing.
And a problem when he first tried to set a fast lap on soft tires meant his best lap time, 1.990 seconds off the pace and 0.938 seconds slower than his teammate Valtteri Bottas, was not as fast as them could have been.
“In the end I was a little disappointed because I only had one lap to set a lap time and unfortunately we had an issue with the DRS not opening,” Shwartzman said.
“I had to abort the lap and try to fix the problem, but I lost the order, the tires and everything else, so on paper I didn’t manage to set a good lap time. Overall the car felt really good and I feel like we could have potentially set a really nice lap time with it.” – IT
Felipe Drugovich
A rare chance for Aston Martin reserve driver Drugovich was not as fruitful as the 2022 Formula 2 champion had hoped.
He lamented that at the end of a session in which he was only two tenths slower than regular driver Lance Stroll, he was “still way too far from the limit” and was basically on par with him when he corrected his lap time, to take into account the traffic in the last sector of his best lap.
Drugovich didn’t seem comfortable with the car, which has been difficult this season, and had recurring issues with understeer on both the hard and soft sides.
His final flying lap, a second attempt on soft tires, was also marred by being in the wrong engine mode for most of the first sector (and also missing the apex of Turn 1 by a mile). “I thought the switch was in the right position, but it was stuck in the middle,” Drugovich said.
Ultimately he was pretty happy with his pace, but unsurprisingly his feedback didn’t differ much from that of the team’s racers: “All I can say is that it’s a pretty difficult car to drive.
“It’s a car we call ‘On and Off.’ It’s quite difficult to feel the car and actually feel comfortable with it.”
Drugovich is not a fan of these FP1 outings because he feels they are too limited, although he accepts that some track time is better than none.
And that should be seen as a decent achievement in a session that once again plays little role in the career of a driver who only gets the bare minimum in his role. – SMM
