Friday at the Mexican Grand Prix is always an interesting affair thanks to the unique demands of the venue plus the influx of FP1 'rookies', who reduce the track time for a host of Formula 1 regulars.
This year is no different: lower downforce with this ruleset at a venue where it's already at a premium; 10 rookies taking the places of permanent drivers; a high-profile Max Verstappen clash; and Ferrari getting the favourite tag means it's been a busy day.
Here are our winners and losers from the action.
Loser: Max Verstappen (5th in FP2)
"When you're fighting for your seat...it's not very smart behaviour," was Verstappen's take, to Sky Sports F1, on Liam Lawson's battle with him in FP2 of all sessions...
Verstappen passed Lawson up the inside of the Turn 12 right-hander but there was contact, and Verstappen accused Lawson of starting to speed up as soon as he had seen him.
They raced side by side into Turns 13 and 14 before Verstappen went off track and eventually moved ahead via contact as they exited the stadium section.
It was aggressive from Verstappen, but Lawson can ill-afford to do anything to upset the Red Bull higher-ups with his seat on the line; Verstappen has recognised that, and upsetting Red Bull's golden goose won't help.
Especially with Lawson's most obvious replacement, Nikola Tsolov, just a fraction shy of Arvid Lindblad in Lawson's car during an impressive FP1 debut. - Jack Benyon
Winner: Charles Leclerc (1st)
Leclerc topped both Friday sessions and, even though the gap to Lando Norris behind was just one tenth in FP2, the Ferrari driver had the best long run pace of anyone.
His medium-tyre stint in FP2 was more than a tenth faster than Norris's similar long-run average - although that was executed on soft tyres. The next-best driver on medium tyres was Kimi Antonelli, 0.324s off Leclerc's benchmark.
That's promising for Ferrari but the team hasn't taken a pole position this season.
Perhaps its US GP upgrade package has turned it into a bona fide contender, and perhaps that smaller turbo is paying off in the thin air and through the low-speed corners of Mexico. - Samarth Kanal
Loser: Lewis Hamilton (11th)
Hamilton was around seven tenths off his team-mate in both sessions and despite Ferrari being the only team not to field a rookie in FP1, the seven-time champion still lost time on track.
Hamilton had to park his Ferrari around the halfway mark in FP2 due to a loss of power.
He did however say that the "car was feeling great" with positive set-up steps having been made after FP1.
Despite that, and Hamilton downplaying a potential advantage for Ferrari due to its smaller turbo - saying that Mercedes and Red Bull are "still quicker at the end of straights" - he was positive post-FP2.
"The car is behaving really well fundamentally. Our car works really well, seemingly, on a track like this."
And that might put Ferrari in the hunt for pole.
"The others seem to take another step, but it honestly feels like we could be close to competing up front," he said. - SK
Winner: Fernando Alonso (12th)
Alonso said he was "open-minded" about Aston Martin-Honda's prospects coming into the weekend, but would he seriously have expected to hit the dizzying heights of 12th in second practice?
We're taking seventh place in a rookie-heavy FP1 with a pinch of salt but the FP2 time looked proper: certainly, none of the delayed cars behind him in the second session look like sure-fire bets to jump ahead on Saturday.
And actually, right now in Alonso's hands the car was closer to the top 10 than to the cars immediately behind. Whisper it, but the Aston Martin might be an outside contender for a Q3 slot come qualifying.
The long-run pace wasn't too shabby, either - so maybe Mexico is the place for that ninth or tenth on merit that Alonso thought he deserved a week ago. - Jack Cozens
Loser: Esteban Ocon (13th)
It was mostly an FP2 to forget for Ocon as he wasn't happy with his Haas team's handling of his session.
His time wasn't bad. After getting the car back off Ryo Hirakawa for FP2, Ocon beat team-mate Ollie Bearman to run a respectable 13th. But there was friction on the radio with his engineer Laura Mueller.
LM: We've swapped the high fuel run to medium because Ollie's [tyre] appearance is not great.
EO: Still doing soft, right?
LM: No, we have to do medium.
EO: No, no, I wanted the soft, don't do that to me. Come on.
He's already leaving the team, so it's not an exchange that has massive long-term implications. But clearly Ocon still cares about his outings this year - perhaps trying to impress Cadillac to take a chance on him for 2027, even if that's understood to not be on the cards - and reports he threw his gloves on the table in displeasure at the Haas hospitality afterwards prove it. - JB
Winner: Lando Norris (2nd)
Not just a cut above Oscar Piastri (par for the course for so much of 2026), but Ferrari's closest challenger on single-lap pace and long runs, this was a strong Friday from Norris - made more impressive by the fact he only got one hour in the car.
What's got to give McLaren and Norris encouragement, despite his claim "the car is still proving a challenge to drive", is the straightline speed holding up - down the main straight to an extent, which could come in handy off the start line, but in particular on the run to Turn 4. The car looks pretty handy through the Esses, too.
As Norris put it: "We've still got plenty to work on overnight as a team, but the foundations are definitely there for us to build on." - JC
Loser: Colton Herta (22nd)
Herta started the day expecting to rack up 100km and achieve a goal he's been trying to for roughly five years now: meeting the points requirement for an F1 superlicence.
In bonkers fashion, that has been taken away from him now because of a corrected error on the IndyCar website which the FIA used to assess his points, giving him more than he should have. So he's back to being one short again.
Herta didn't even know this until after FP2 but, if anyone is prepared for what to do when it comes to superlicence disappointment, it's him.
In his FP1, he looked scrappy, but struggled to adapt at Turn 12 and by the time he figured it out his performance runs were over. He reckoned his long runs were more impressive.
Every chance on track right now is another opportunity to try to convince Cadillac, General Motors and TWG that it should put him in the car, and now Herta will almost certainly get at least one more shot this season as the team will give him another outing to get the point needed to make him F1-eligible. Still, he could do with that next outing being a bit tidier. - JB
Loser: Gabriel Bortoleto (22nd)
Bortoleto managed to complete just 12 laps in FP2 as he was confined to the garage for much of the session - although it wasn't clear whether the issues were a continuation of those that stopped debutant Freddie Slater from turning meaningful laps in FP1.
Team-mate Nico Hulkenberg meanwhile managed 62 laps on Friday.
That's plenty of learning about the tyres, the aerodynamics, and the power unit around this high-altitude anomaly of a circuit.
Bortoleto is on the back foot heading into Saturday. - SK
Winner: George Russell (3rd)
After a disappointing Austin event where he was greatly overshadowed by Antonelli and called his race "rubbish", Russell needed a strong start in Mexico - and he got it.
Despite missing FP1, when Fred Vesti took over, Russell was immediately on it and a tenth clear of an admittedly under-the-weather Antonelli in FP2.
Russell didn't seem as happy as you would think that result would make him. He reckons Ferrari is the clear favourite and Mercedes is out of the ideal window - struggling with through-corner balance related to the troublesome Malaysia upgrade on the car.
But regardless of any of that, 'mission one' for the rest of the year has to be to beat Antonelli in every session, and that was achieved on Friday. - JB
Loser: Valtteri Bottas (21st)
Bottas gets the benefit of the doubt of having been hamstrung by lost track time, after sitting FP1 out, and being struck down by the same viral infection that's affecting team-mate Sergio Perez (who skipped commitments before and after practice).
With that said, ending up three quarters of a second off your team-mate when there's growing speculation around your seat, and when the prime candidate to take it off you (Herta) gets a run in your car, isn't a particularly good look. Nor is having to concede you're "a little bit lost with the set-up".
Let's give a little more benefit of the doubt: as Bottas says, that's "normal, it can happen". And it's still eminently possible he keeps his seat - team principal Marcin Budkowski accepted Cadillac is "not giving these guys the best possible equipment" and as such is trying to work through Bottas's difficulties with him.
But there's only so many of these kinds of performances gaps that are acceptable at this stage before that patience wears thin. - JC
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