Almost half of the Formula 1 grid will miss FP1 at the Mexican Grand Prix, with nine race drivers sitting out the session in favour of rookies. So why is the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez such a popular circuit for sidelining the regulars?
First and foremost, this is of course down to the rules. In 2022, the sporting regulations were changed to require what’s colloquially referred to as a ‘rookie’ driver, but is officially “a driver who has not participated in more than two championship races in their career”, crucially with no age limit, to appear in FP1 twice, on one occasion in each car. For 2025, this quota doubled to mean this must happen on four occasions.
This means an impressive roster of drivers will be in action who have never started a grand prix: Arvid Lindblad (Red Bull), Pato O’Ward (McLaren), Antonio Fuoco (Ferrari), Fred Vesti (Mercedes), Luke Browning (Williams), Jak Crawford (Aston Martin), Paul Aron (Alpine), Ayumu Iwasa (Racing Bulls), and Ryo Hirakawa (Haas).
Only Sauber does not have a rookie in action because it has already fulfilled the requirements thanks to 2025 rookie Gabriel Bortoleto counting for the first two events and on-loan Aron running at Silverstone and Hungaroring.
Mexico has been a popular venue for rookie drivers to run in recent years, with five appearing in each of the previous runnings since the rule was introduced. The increase to nine this year is largely down to the increased requirement for rookie appearances, but that doesn’t in itself explain why Mexico is chosen by so many.
As it’s late in the season, teams generally have less to learn about their cars and little in the way of upgrades. Given sprint weekends are a no-go for replacing a race driver for the sole practice session, that means there are relatively few opportunities late in the season, as three of the last six events run to that format. This makes Mexico and Abu Dhabi, where FP1 takes place in the daytime and therefore isn’t so relevant to the key running that takes place under lights, popular venues.
Mexico City is also a circuit where, for the most part, the aero set-up is not such a big challenge as it’s a maximum downforce configuration track - albeit one in which the actual downforce produced is low thanks to the reduced air density at just under 2300 metres.
However, by far the most significant factor is how ‘green’ the track is, i.e. low-grip and dirty, for FP1, with prodigious track evolution as the weekend progresses.
“That’s why all the rookies are out, basically,” said Albon, who will run in FP1 as team-mate Carlos Sainz is making way for Browning.
“It’s a good track to learn on, it's relatively simple [although] there are still some walls, and I've found them a couple of times.
“But it's so green. The track evolution in FP1 is one of the highest of the year. We often tell ourselves we don't actually change the car between FP1 and FP2 unless there's something seriously wrong, because you don't actually know what the car's going to be like until FP2.”
George Russell, who sits out FP1 for Vesti, suggested you could argue it’s actually an advantage to miss the session. “There’s an argument to say you probably gain because the track is so offset in laptimes, quite dirty, dusty,” said Russell,
“Laptimes may be four seconds off, at the end of the session, compared to qualifying. Sometimes I felt when you go blind into FP2, you don’t have those bad experiences of the FP1 session. So of all the tracks, this is the one where you lose the least, hence why every car except one has an FP1 driver in.”
Haas driver Ollie Bearman has been on both sides of the fence when it comes to FP1 in Mexico. He made his F1 weekend debut here in 2023, also appearing in the session last year, but in 2025 is sitting it out to allow Ryo Hirakawa another outing.
And this was Bearman’s own choice. He admitted that he made a mistake in selecting the Bahrain season opener as his other FP1 to skip, which is because of the fact that fresh tyres are only really good for one push lap there, but is confident Mexico was the right one.
“Bahrain was not the correct move, but I think this one will be the correct move,” said Bearman. “It's good to get it [the missed session] out of the way. It's a track that develops a lot during the weekend. We have nine out of 10 possible people running in FP1 here, pretty much everyone who can, so it's the obvious choice.
"I've had the experience on the track. It’s obviously not beneficial to give away an FP1, but I think it's the least damaging that I could think of when I decided to give away my sessions.”
The only downside for Bearman is that Haas still needs to troubleshoot the major aerodynamic upgrade introduced at Austin last weekend, which has made the car more unstable in the high-speed corners. From that perspective, it might have helped to have a regular in the car to help fine-tune it, but as Bearman points out, there was no way to anticipate that situation.
“I didn't know that was coming and it's tough to predict all of those things,” said Bearman. “I would have liked another session just to get to grips with this car, but with everything that happened in Austin, I had really one low fuel lap before qualifying on the new package, and we still managed to do a good qualifying, so I don't think it's going to be the make-or-break factor of this weekend.
“When we sit down in January or February and decide those things, it's tough to take everything into account. Given the circumstances, I've learned a lot about which sessions to give away, because it's not as easy as just picking a random session. There's definitely a lot of method to it.”
Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson is another who has experienced sitting in for a race driver, which he did in 2022, and missing FP1 in Mexico, as he did in 2023 and will again this year.
“It’s never an ideal situation when you step out of the car, but in this case, it’s a track that evolves a lot over the weekend,” said Lawson.
“It’s a track that at the start of practice is very slippery and quite green anyway.
"Obviously, for me, I would choose never to step out of the car, but it’s something that we all have to do.”
You might therefore question whether there’s any point in running in FP1 at all. Partly, there’s the need to clean up the track, but for the teams there is still work to be done and things to learn. It’s just that the prodigious track evolution must be factored in when drawing conclusions about set-up changes and tyre knowledge - and it’s important to note that the hard Pirellis will likely be used by everyone in FP1.
“Still, we can’t not race the session - even if the FP1 runs are not very useful, like in Abu Dhabi, where it’s so hot compared to the session that matters,” said Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu. “But you’ve got to get the best out of it, so in terms of mindset it doesn’t change. You cannot be complacent.”
The flip side of the coin is the opportunity for the rookie drivers to impress, even though the top priority for the teams fielding them is that they do, as Komatsu says, “a professional job”. Bearman made a big impact on his FP1 debut here in 2023, for example.
This year’s crop is a blend of rising stars such as Crawford, Lindblad, Browning and Aron, older hands such as Hirakawa and Fuoco, plus home hero and IndyCar ace Pato O’Ward.
But Bortoleto, a driver who never took over a regular race driver’s seat for FP1, thinks that F2 frontrunner Browning is one to watch.
“I will be looking at Luke Browning,” said Bortoleto. “I think he’s very talented, he’s doing an amazing season in F2. I think he will be on the grid [in the] future if he keeps doing a good job like he’s doing.
"He has been doing a lot of private testing with Williams, and I think he can do a good job tomorrow and have a successful F1 career.”
