Mexican GP FP1: Everything you need to know

Valtteri Bottas led a Mercedes 1-2 in the opening Mexican Grand Prix practice session but Formula 1 championship leader Max Verstappen was only a tenth away.

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Key moments:
> Bottas leads Hamilton
> Verstappen and Perez third and fourth
> Perez loses 30 minutes after crash
> Leclerc suffers similar incident

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Bottas topped the session on a 1m18.341s, just 0.076s faster than his title-challenging Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

Hamilton will face an investigation after the session for not following the correct rejoining procedure when he ran off the circuit at Turn 1 – scene of his opening lap rejoining controversy in 2016.

He’ll see the stewards 16 minutes after the end of FP1.

Two-time Mexican GP winner Verstappen was third, just 0.123s adrift of Bottas’s benchmark.

Sergio Perez began the weekend with bullish talk on Thursday, saying he was “pretty sure” that his Red Bull team wanted him to win his home Mexican GP.

But his first on-track session didn’t start in the best fashion as Perez spun less than 10 minutes into the session and sent his Red Bull rearwards into the barriers on the entry to the final corner.

His incident came moments after Charles Leclerc suffered a similar incident and reversed his Ferrari into the barriers at the same corner.

Both drivers sustained rear wing damage, with Perez rejoining with just over 20 minutes remaining and Leclerc following a few minutes later.

Peraltada BITES!

Both Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez slide backwards into the barrier and pick up some rear wing damage 😱#MexicoGP 🇲🇽 #F1 pic.twitter.com/ZM4Jzi5F1D

— Formula 1 (@F1) November 5, 2021

Perez still managed to set the fourth-fastest time, just under three tenths adrift, while Leclerc was eighth, behind Fernando Alonso’s Alpine, his Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz and fifth-placed Pierre Gasly.

Esteban Ocon was ninth in the second Alpine, ahead of Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin) and Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri).

Tsunoda – along with Aston’s Lance Stroll – will start Sunday’s race from the back of the grid due to multiple engine component changes.

The McLarens of Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris could only manage the 14th and 15th fastest times.

Practice 1 Results