Formula 1: Martin Brundle was made to awkardly wait for former Heavyweight World Champion Anthony Joshua prior to the US Grand Prix in Austin.
Lando Norris opened the Mexico City Grand Prix weekend by declaring that McLaren wouldn’t be very competitive.
It’s reasonable to be cautious about predictions on Friday in a session that saw seven different constructors inside the top eight and surprisingly limited field spread, with less than half a second splitting the entire top 10. But there is a potential asterisk here. Conditions were cooler than they’re expected to be for the rest of the weekend, and constant drizzle meant the track surface remained cool too. Keeping the tyres from overheating is the key strategic challenge at this circuit, and a hotter track might throw these numbers into doubt.
There are question marks over how representative the session was — Valtteri Bottas put his Alfa Romeo fourth, for example, which is highly unusual. “I’m not smiling because I’m looking ahead; it’s a good day, and it gives me confidence for tomorrow.”For the second weekend in a row Lance Stroll lost significant practice time to car problems not of his making.
The Spaniard lost his sole soft-tyre lap to a spin through the esses. He’d looked reasonably competitive up to that point, being 0.158 seconds down on Verstappen in the first sector, where the straights punish the Aston Martin’s higher drag. Doohan’s program comprised 25 laps, including a long final stint on the soft tyre, to end the session 18th. He said he wasn’t given the chance to complete a low-fuel flying lap.