Five Things to Know About the Mexico City GP

We've barely had a moment to wave COTA goodbye after our points-scoring Sunday, and it's already time to go for the Mexico City GP.

The second in the American tripleheader event sees us travel south of the border and up into the clouds for 71 laps around the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.

Get ready for three days of Mexican action with these five things...

We had a slightly different look at the US GP as our fans voted on the Cosmos Collection as part of the Kraken Rear Wing Takeover.

Mexico City will see a much more prominent change as our engine cover swaps colour to become yellow for the first of two races.

Our partnership with Mercado Libre sees a striking design that resembles the look of some of our championship-winning cars from our history.

You won't miss Franco or Alex in their FW46 machines this weekend!

There are an extra 30 minutes of running for all teams and drivers on Friday as FP2 will run for 90 minutes instead of its usual hour.

It's the only FP2 session we'll have in the Americas as Sprint Qualifying replaced the second Free Practice at last week's US GP and will again at next week's Sao Paulo GP.

Sprint's exclusion is not why we'll get some additional running, however. The bonus half-hour is there to help the future.

Pirelli has brought their softest compounds of the 2025 tyre range to Mexico City, and each driver will have two sets to trial throughout the session and will need to follow the tyre manufacturer's run plan.

While that is helpful for Franco, who has never driven the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez before, there are still only two hours for him and Alex to prepare their setup for Qualifying in FP1 and FP3.

So much conversation around Mexico City speaks about the thin air and high altitude thanks to the city sitting over 2.2 km in the sky.

Yet the circuit itself is one of the least undulating tracks on the Formula 1 calendar that sees the drivers race on an almost entirely flat layout.

The high point at Turn 6 is a dizzying 2,229 m above sea level, but the final corner's 'low' of 2,226 m means there's around just 3 m of elevation change across a lap.

Considering Spa-Francorchamps' change is over 100 m per lap, each tour around Mexico City feels spirit-level flat by comparison.

The Foro Sol complex is the standout feature of every lap around the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. There is nothing quite like the atmosphere in the old baseball stadium when the cars drive through the twisty final sector.

Although the cheering fans might not notice it as much as the drivers, there is a change to the slow-speed corners between Turn 12 and Turn 15 this weekend.

Resurfacing work has put down new asphalt around the Foro Sol section, which will require some re-adapting for Alex, who's had three trips to Mexico City before.

It's not a well-used circuit, either, so track evolution around all 17 corners will change from Friday to Sunday as more rubber builds up on the racing line.

Williams Racing were stuck towards the bottom of the championship standings just four rounds ago as we left Zandvoort and we had four points from 2024.

Alex and Franco have scored 13 points in three of the four grands prix since, and each has brought back two top-10 finishes.

That form has jumped the team up to P8 in the World Constructors' Championship as we head into the final five rounds, and we're ready to fight to finish as high up the standings as possible.

Every position counts in F1, as Alpine showed in Austin when they prevented Franco from securing the Fastest Lap point, so we'll be watching our backs as much as we look up the order.

Alex scored a superb P9 in Mexico City last year from a P14 start, and we'll be pushing for another Mexican fiesta in 2024, too.