Mexico City Grand Prix: Practice Recap

Japan’s Ryō Hirakawa was present for the third of four planned FP1 outings with the team – Ollie Bearman stepping aside for the opening practice session in Mexico to enable Hirakawa, the team’s official reserve driver, to pilot the VF-25 having already done so in Bahrain and Spain earlier this season.

Hirakawa kicked off his stint with a baseline run on the Pirelli P Zero White hard tires before transitioning onto the Red soft compound – on which he set his fastest lap, a 1:20.073, good for P16 overall. The 31-year-old concluded his session with a high-fuel run to the checkered flag on his previous set of hard tires. Ocon commenced his program with an outing on the Yellow medium rubber. Switching onto fresh softs, Ocon clocked a best lap of 1:19.038 to claim P7 on the timesheets. The Frenchman wrapped FP1 returning on the used medium compound on high-fuel.

FP2 later in the day saw Bearman back alongside Ocon in the garage and on-track. The British rookie trialed the medium tires to start before quali sim runs on the softs. Bearman’s fastest lap, a 1:18.442, placed him P17. Ocon was P13 in the session after a best tour on the soft rubber of 1:18.266. Both drivers completed the day with long-distance runs, Ocon shod on mediums and Bearman utilizing softs.

MoneyGram Haas F1 Team ran a total of 121 laps on Friday across FP1 and FP2 – 60 by Ocon with 34 from Bearman and 27 from Hirakawa.

Ryō Hirakawa:

“As always, I’d like to thank both MoneyGram Haas F1 Team and TOYOTA GAZOO Racing for this opportunity. I’d say it was a hectic session as it’s quite a short circuit for 20 cars, so it was tricky to manage the traffic. It was also my first time driving around the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, so there was a bit of everything for me today – exploring the track with a lot of cars, managing traffic and tires, it was very busy. We completed the run plan with no issues though, so I’m happy with that. I know which way the team wants to head, and I’m very much aligned with that, so everything is working well, I can't wait to get to Abu Dhabi where I'm driving once again."  

Ollie Bearman:

“It’s tough to miss out on FP1 and lose that rhythm that you build, but overall, I think FP2 was decent. Particularly in the long run, I felt like I’d made some progress, although I need to work on the short run. I’m happy with the day, I think we’ve made some good steps with the car since how it felt the last time I drove it here in 2023, so that’s positive and hopefully we’re going to have a good weekend. The update is doing what we expected, and I’m glad now that we have a few more sessions to play with it, we can make some changes overnight to optimize it tomorrow for FP3.”

Esteban Ocon:

“It’s been an interesting day. We’ve learned quite a lot about the car and tried a lot of things which have been quite positive, so I’m satisfied overall. We now just need to make the right choices for the rest of the weekend, in terms of strategy, and go into qualifying with good confidence. The update has definitely gone in the right direction and the team has done a really good job improving the balance of the car.”

Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal:

“I think it was a solid Friday. We had Ryō (Hirakawa) back in the car for FP1 and here in Mexico it’s always a tricky one as the grip level is so low to start, but he was building up well and found speed every lap. Ollie jumped in again for FP2 and established the baseline pretty quickly. He learned a lot on his high fuel run, so I’m confident we can find another step for FP3. Esteban had a good solid pair of sessions. There are few key areas to work on for tomorrow which is good. Overall, a solid Friday – something we can build up from for FP3 and qualifying tomorrow.”