Mexico City FP1 Rookies: Ten Regulars Hand Over Cars

Ten of the 20 regular drivers will sit out Mexico City FP1 on Friday, 30 October 2026, and their cars go to rookies and reserves. Ayumu Iwasa takes Max Verstappen's Red Bull, Frederik Vesti steps into George Russell's Mercedes, and Leonardo Fornaroli drives Lando Norris's McLaren. Ferrari is the only team running both full-time drivers. The Mexico City FP1 rookies are there because every car must give a rookie two practice outings during 2026, and this weekend is where most teams chose to pay that debt, according to Sky Sports and Crash.net.

Who are the Mexico City FP1 rookies?

Sky Sports and Crash.net list the same ten swaps. Iwasa replaces Verstappen at Red Bull, Vesti replaces Russell at Mercedes, and Fornaroli replaces Norris at McLaren. Nikola Tsolov takes Liam Lawson's Racing Bulls, Gabriele Mini takes Franco Colapinto's Alpine, and Ryo Hirakawa drives Esteban Ocon's Haas. Freddie Slater is in for Gabriel Bortoleto at Audi, Luke Browning for Alex Albon at Williams, Jak Crawford for Lance Stroll at Aston Martin, and Colton Herta for Valtteri Bottas at Cadillac.

That is half the grid in different hands for the opening hour at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. Sky Sports describes Fornaroli as the F2 champion and Tsolov as an F2 title contender, so the substitute bench is better qualified than the phrase usually suggests.

Why are rookies driving in Mexico City?

Each team has to run a rookie in two practice sessions for each of its cars across the season. Sky Sports notes that Mexico City suits the exercise: it is not a street circuit, and the weekend has no Sprint, so a conventional Friday leaves room for the swap.

What does it mean for the weekend?

Our read: the first session will produce the least reliable lap times of the weekend. Ten cars are driven by people with little recent mileage in them, so the order tells you who drove well for one hour, not who has the fastest car.

Treat FP1 as a job interview, not a pecking order.

The regulars do lose something real: an hour of learning the track. Ferrari, alone, keeps both in the car, which gives its engineers one more full session of regular-driver feedback going into FP2. That is a small edge, not a verdict, and we will check it against the timing data once the weekend is done.

What comes next?

Per Sky Sports, Practice 2 follows on Friday, 30 October at 10pm UK time, Practice 3 on Saturday, 31 October at 6.30pm, qualifying at 9pm that evening, and the race on Sunday, 1 November at 8pm UK time. FP2 is where the real order starts to show.

Follow every session in GridRaces live timing, compare the cars afterwards in telemetry, and see where the title race stands in the standings. For one rookie with a weekend story already, read our piece on Fornaroli in Norris's McLaren. When qualifying is done, make your Mexico City picks.