By The Telegraph (World News) | Created at 2024-10-29 18:11:43 | Updated at 2024-11-05 13:45:15
1 week ago
Welcome to our coverage for qualifying for the 2024 Mexico City Grand Prix at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. F1 returned here in 2015 and we have seen a race (whether the Mexican Grand Prix or this one) every year except for the pandemic-blighted year of 2020. Has it been a worthy addition to the calendar? Yes, on the whole.
The altitude as well as the track layout has produced some good moments, though this event has not been without its duller editions. Though what race track hasn’t had a few duds over a decade or so? And, naturally, how good a race is depends on how close the competition is too. At the moment it is very close, which normally makes for an interesting weekend.
Yes, the issue over track limits and racing rules has rumbled on into this weekend and will no doubt continue beyond. But there have been a few other talking points since the weekend began, namely a couple of big crashes in practice yesterday. The first came when Alexander Albon and Oliver Bearman (subbing in at Ferrari) collided in FP1 which was a strange incident.
Then came George Russell’s hefty crash in FP2, which resulted in a trip to the medical centre, because of a 30G impact. Thankfully he is OK now but it follows on from his crash in qualifying last week in Austin, with his team-mate Lewis Hamilton crashing early in the race. An expensive week or so for Mercedes.
FP3 finished a short while ago and McLaren looked the class of the field. Oscar Piastri – who was rather and strangely distant from team-mate Lando Norris in Austin – topped the field by less than a second over the second McLaren. Carlos Sainz was the closest non-McLaren driver, 0.340sec off Piastri’s time. Max Verstappen was fourth for Red Bull, albeit half a second off the ultimate pace.
Qualifying gets under way at 10pm BST and we will be here for all of the build-up, live updates and reaction from it.
