On the back of his dominant display last time out at Austin, Max Verstappen made his intentions for the weekend clear, setting the fastest time at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez at the end of the first day of practice for the Mexico City Grand Prix. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo delivers drivers' reactions.

Red Bull

“Of course, it was a long wait to get in the car this Friday. Arvid did well today and thanks to him for looking after my car. On the Soft tyre we managed to get in a good lap, but the rest wasn’t great.

"The Medium laps weren’t good and the big problem is the long runs where we seem to struggle a lot, which is a concern for the race. The balance isn’t off but there is no grip, which is the main concern. As soon as you go on to a sustainable run the car goes hot and we end up nowhere, which is tough.

"You can be fast on one lap but will not have pace in the race and of course I would prefer to be fast in the race. It’s going to be tough so we need to take a look and analyse.”

“I can be fairly happy with this Friday, it's been a while since I've had an FP1 and FP2 feel so consistent throughout, so I'm pretty happy overall. There is, of course, stuff we can improve on in both the long and short runs but we're in a good place for Saturday and feel in a better position than we have been on Fridays before.

"Tomorrow there are things we'll look to optimise in order to find greater performance, but generally the balance was okay. We did, however, struggle with a few things but you can expect that around here. If we can find a compromise between those then we can definitely increase the strengths of the car for Qualifying and Sunday."

Ferrari

"I was so happy to see Antonio by my side this morning. We grew up together in the Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy and to share the garage with him was very special.

"We've been teammates in junior categories before and have great memories together, both on and off the track. To have him in the car during FP1, running different tests and collecting data is valuable for us given his work in the simulator throughout the year. I hope he enjoyed it.

"We put in some solid laps and I had a good feeling in the car today. Our competitors are strong, so for now it’s not realistic to think we can be ahead of them tomorrow. We will build on our work from today and push to make some improvements to close the gap ahead of qualifying."

"I think Antonio did a great job this morning. We took away some valuable learnings from his running, which I really appreciate, and it was great to watch him in the car during FP1.

"FP2 was a bit more challenging on the single lap as the pace didn’t feel strong, but our long-run pace looked more consistent. There’s still performance to unlock, and we’ll be doing our best to get into a stronger position for FP3 and qualifying."

Mercedes

"As an F1 driver, you rarely get the chance to go into the grandstands and see the cars on track…as you are usually in the car driving! I took the chance with Fred in the car for FP1 to do just that though and go experience it for myself. It was very enjoyable; it was also good to be able to watch on as Fred did a great job in my place and put us in a strong position to head into FP2.

"After getting back in the car for the second session, we can say that the competitive order looks very close once again. It is a short track, so the margins are going to be small between the whole field.

"We looked solid on single lap pace, and we know how important qualifying has proved recently in securing a good result on Sunday. All eyes are on that for tomorrow and we will see what we can do. It is certainly going to be close between the top eight cars by the looks of today."

"That was a decent Friday. It’s probably one of the best first days on track I’ve had in a long time. I felt comfortable in the car immediately and was able to get straight on the pace. FP1 was slightly better than FP2; we tried some changes in between the sessions.

"Some of those changes helped improve the car, others maybe set us back a little bit. We now have the time to work through the data this evening and decide what to keep and what to go back on ahead of FP3.

"I’m looking forward to tomorrow and the rest of the weekend. Our pace looks good in both low and high fuel, but we know the track will continue to improve. It is going to be important to evolve with that, both in my driving and with the car. We will do our best and hopefully can have two more positive days here in Mexico City following our running today."

McLaren

“An okay day, but just a messy FP2. There are some things we can pretty easily tidy up, so I'm confident we can dial it all in tomorrow and have a good Quali."

“Having missed FP1, it was good to get into the car and quickly find the rhythm in FP2. We’re maybe a little bit off the pace from a one-lap perspective at the moment, but we’ll try and find something overnight and see what we can do to compete for Pole.”

Aston Martin

"We made some changes to the car from Free Practice One and it felt better in Free Practice Two. Friday isn't the real picture though, so let's see whether we can improve things overnight and be in a good position tomorrow."

"I always love coming back to Mexico, it's a great race weekend. There's always incredible energy from the fans here and I like this track.

"The car felt OK in Free Practice Two. I got into a good rhythm pretty quickly. There are a few things to work on for us tonight and we'll see what we can do tomorrow."

Williams

"A tricky Friday where we struggled a bit with the setup. The track is also super slippery out there, so it took a while to get up to speed and get some proper laps in.

"We’ve got some work to do overnight and we will analyse everything as a team. If we can get on top of a few things for tomorrow, I think we’ll be in a better spot for qualifying."

"I’m relatively happy with the car, especially considering I missed FP1. There’s some setup work that needs to be done going into FP3 tomorrow but overall, it was a positive session.

"For tomorrow, I think Q3 should be our target, but to achieve it we will need to execute a perfect qualifying. Let’s see if we can find some performance overnight and keep improving step by step."

Kick Sauber

“It was a regular Friday for us. FP1 went smoothly while FP2 wasn’t quite as clean, so there’s still a bit more performance to unlock but, overall, it’s been a decent day. Now it’s all about the usual Friday night work, analysing, optimising and fine-tuning the setup. Once again, it looks like a very close fight out there, but I believe we can battle for a spot around the top 10 in qualifying tomorrow.”

“It was my first time racing here in Mexico, and I have to say the conditions were quite different from what I’m used to – very low grip, especially early in the session. Overall, however, it felt okay: I enjoyed the challenge, and the atmosphere was great. In FP2, I struggled a bit to get a proper lap in on the soft tyres.

"When I finally did, the tyres were already past their peak, so the lap didn’t reflect our full potential. Still, we gathered good information about the car and the balance, which is what matters most at this stage. I’m excited to keep building from here – it's a cool place to race and I’m looking forward to the rest of the weekend.”

Racing Bulls

“It was a tough Friday for us today. Looking at our FP programme, I think we made the right choices in terms of tyres keeping some new Softs for tomorrow, so hopefully that will play an important role.

"This is a very low downforce track, the midfield is tight and it seems like we’re lacking a couple of tenths from the guys ahead of us when it comes to short runs. We’ll regroup together to analyze everything with the team tonight and get some work done ahead of tomorrow."

“The track is really tricky to drive as it's high altitude, slippery and has low grip. That being said, the car is in a decent place. Around half of the grid missed FP1 as the young drivers were on track, so many of us are in a similar position.

"FP3 is going to be important and the track surface itself should get better before Qualifying, so the aim is to ensure we have the best car package for then.”

Haas

“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.”

“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 optimise it tomorrow for FP3.”

“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 Autodromo Hermanos Rodríguez, so there was a bit of everything for me today – exploring the track with a lot of cars, managing traffic and tyres, 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."

Alpine

“Today, I sat out of Free Practice 1, with Paul in my car for the session. He did a good job in running to the programme with some useful set-up work to give us some data to work with. On my side, once I was back in the car for the second session, it was very difficult and probably one of the toughest sessions of the season.

"For some reason, I just struggled with the car. It was quite difficult across the board – the car felt different to normal - and the grip levels just felt very low. So, not an ideal start to the weekend and I am sure we will come together and aim to do better tomorrow when it counts.”

“It's always good to be back in this part of the world and driving at this very unique circuit. Personally, it felt like a decent Friday where I was up to speed quite quickly. I think we have a bit of performance to find especially with some of the kerbs and bumps at this track where the car felt quite unstable.

"I felt good on the long run at the end of Free Practice 2 so hopefully that gives us something to work towards with an eye on Sunday. A lot to analyse, as normal for a Friday, and a few things for us to improve as a team.”