REPORT: Red flags fill Friday in Mexico City

Williams Racing's extended running on Friday at Mexico City ended with reduced mileage than expected after multiple red flags punctuated FP1 and FP2.

Franco Colapinto ended FP1 with the 11th-fastest time of a 1:19.109 in our new-look FW46, before going faster in FP2 with a 1:18.908 to end Friday in P15.

Alex Albon, however, only had seven laps of action all day, and ended P17 in FP1 with a 1:19.812 lap.

Any drivers who ventured out early in FP1 soon returned to the pit lane five minutes into the first 2024 Mexican running.

Unfortunately, Alex Albon was the cause of the second stoppage in the first practice session when he crashed into the Turn 10 barriers.

The FW46 hit the barriers after encountering the slow-moving Ferrari of Ollie Bearman and the subsequent damage prevented Alex from joining FP2.

Our No23 had started the session well, setting the fastest lap in the early stages before dropping to P17 and being forced to sit out of FP2.

Franco's first trip to Mexico City went well despite the stop-start nature of the two sessions and our Argentinian clocked up his first 51 laps of the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.

Times weren't overly representative in the 90-minute FP2 session as the 2025 Pirelli tyre test meant drivers and teams had no control over the compound choices.

The extended session lost nearly 25 minutes of action after George Russell hit the barriers to cause the third red flag of the day.

Franco still took his test tyre for 30 tours in the remaining time to gather useful data for both the team and Pirelli.

"t’s been a good first day here in Mexico," Franco shared after FP2. "We made some changes between sessions however the car felt a little bit less alive, so we’ll look at that tonight.

"Overall, the key today was to get used to the track and get up to speed which went well.

"We’re going in the right direction, so we’ll keep building tomorrow."

Alex continue our reaction by saying: "It was a frustrating day today. We have a lot of work to do tomorrow but I’m hoping we’re not too far behind given FP2 was a Pirelli test, so hopefully the lack of track time today is less compromising.

"Regarding the incident, I think Ollie got told that I was behind him too late and tried his best to speed up into the high-speed corners, but I just caught him at the worst part of the track and there wasn’t much I could’ve done to avoid it.

"We’ll put it behind us as a racing incident and hopefully turn things around for tomorrow." Sven Smeets, Sporting Director, wrapped up our Friday reflections by commenting: "A day of mixed feelings. We completed the programme with Franco in FP1 gathering valuable information for tomorrow and Sunday.

"Unfortunately, Alex caught a slow-moving Bearman in an unfortunate spot on the track with limited options to avoid a collision.

"Extensive repairs were needed, and the team gave it their all to repair the car in time for FP2.

We came very close but needed a few more minutes to give Alex a couple of laps at the end of FP2.

"Franco completed the Pirelli tyre test programme in FP2 without any problems.

"Tomorrow we will be focussing on giving Alex as much run time as we can while with Franco, we will be looking to gather vital data for final set-up decisions."