{"id":947175,"date":"2026-10-31T04:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T04:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/947175\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T04:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T04:28:10","slug":"ferraris-charles-leclerc-fastest-in-both-f1-mexico-practice-sessions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/947175\/","title":{"rendered":"Ferrari&#8217;s Charles Leclerc fastest in both F1 Mexico practice sessions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Ferrari&#8217;s Charles Leclerc was fastest in both practice sessions for a Mexico City Grand Prix set to crown 20-year-old Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli as Formula 1&#8217;s youngest champion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Antonelli missed Thursday&#8217;s media day to recover from a viral illness, but the Italian was second on the time sheets in the first session and fourth in the later one at the capital&#8217;s high-altitude Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2026-10-26\/how-kimi-antonelli-can-win-f1-drivers-championship\/107308200\" data-component=\"FullBleedLink\" class=\"RelatedCard_link__rsgR9 FullBleedLink_root__lTw_U interactive_focusContext__yRhc_ interactive_defaults__AKxUU FullBleedLink_showVisited__g3Xvz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">How Kimi Antonelli can win the F1 title in Mexico<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP RelatedCard_synopsis__cFwMW Typography_sizeMobile14__u7TGe Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">The Mexico City Grand Prix shapes up to be the coronation of Kimi Antonelli as an F1 champion. Here is how he can seal the world title.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Antonelli is 123 points clear of teammate George Russell at the top and needs only two more points, a ninth place, to be sure of the title while the Briton has to win on Sunday to stay mathematically in the game with four rounds remaining.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Leclerc, who was also fastest in both Friday sessions in Texas last week before Antonelli won, produced a best effort of 1:17.827 in the second practice, when the times were much closer, after going top in the first by 0.659 with a lap of 1:18.128.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;Overall, our performance looks quite all right, but we still need to work on some of our limiting factors. It was quite tricky on track today, as the surface was slippery,&#8221; Leclerc said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">McLaren&#8217;s reigning world champion and last year&#8217;s winner, Lando Norris, was second fastest in the later session, 0.103 slower, with Russell third.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Leclerc&#8217;s teammate and seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton, a two-time winner in Mexico, stopped on track and triggered a virtual safety car with half an hour remaining. &#8220;I lost all power,&#8221; Hamilton said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Red flags were shown and the session halted after Red Bull&#8217;s Max Verstappen, a five-time winner in Mexico, and Racing Bulls&#8217; Liam Lawson, a former teammate, made contact with 47 minutes to go, leaving debris from the Dutch driver&#8217;s car on the track.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;He literally just drove into me. Every weekend,&#8221; Lawson said over the radio.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Verstappen hit back at the New Zealander, whose place has yet to be confirmed for next year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;At the end of the day, it is not going to change my weekend, but if I were him I would act a little smarter. And when you&#8217;re fighting for your seat, it&#8217;s not very smart behaviour,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">ABC Sport will have a live blog of the Formula 1 Mexico City Grand Prix on Monday, November 2, from 5:30am AEDT.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ferrari&#8217;s Charles Leclerc was fastest in both practice sessions for a Mexico City Grand Prix set to crown&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":947176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,13275,21779,817,514621,826,813,816,841,85],"class_list":["post-947175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-charles-leclerc","tag-drivers-championship","tag-f1","tag-f1-mexico","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-grand-prix","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=947175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/947176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}