Practice pace: close at the front, Red Bull behind
The final practice session in Mexico showed a tight fight at the top and Red Bull outside it. Lando Norris went fastest by 0.001s from Kimi Antonelli, with the top four teams separated by very little, according to [1]. Red Bull ran behind that group.
Max Verstappen was fifth, 0.351s behind Norris, and he was struggling with his brakes. A deficit of that size is not huge in a session this close, but brake trouble at a track that demands heavy stopping is a worry going into qualifying and the race. Isack Hadjar finished in the top eight and described his Red Bull as the worst car he had driven that weekend. That is a candid verdict, even from a driver who still produced a respectable lap.
Liam Lawson was ninth, ahead of rookie team-mate Arvid Lindblad in tenth, which rounded out the top 10. The picture is of cars from the wider Red Bull family sitting in the midfield of the top ten rather than challenging for pole. Antonelli, meanwhile, is the benchmark: he has nine wins this season and could clinch the title in Mexico, according to [2]. Red Bull would be watching someone else’s celebration rather than defending their own position at the front.
The Verstappen and Lawson clash
The weekend’s other talking point came on Friday, when Verstappen and Lawson made contact in the Foro Sol section during practice. The stewards gave each driver a one-place grid penalty for Sunday’s race and a superlicence penalty point, as reported by [3].
The penalty was more than a formal warning would have been. The stewards escalated it because of earlier warnings given at the Team Managers meeting, so the sanction reflects a pattern of cautions rather than only the single incident. A one-place drop is small in practical terms, since it only matters if the two cars qualify near one another or the order is tight, and in Mexico the long run to the first corner can make even one place count.
There was also a mechanical cost. Verstappen’s barge boards were damaged in the contact, and he had to run with the damage for the rest of the second practice session. That limited the useful running on a Friday when the team was already looking for answers on balance and braking. Combined with the brake problems that showed up on Saturday, it means Verstappen’s preparation has been far from clean.
The wind tunnel is a story for 2027
If anyone hoped a development breakthrough might soon lift Red Bull, the latest news points the other way. The team’s new wind tunnel at Milton Keynes is not yet ready and is expected to come online sometime during the 2027 season, [4] reports.
The benefits are expected to be gradual. The facility will most likely help the second half of the 2027 car and most of the 2028 car. Team principal Laurent Mekies says it should eventually provide a competitive advantage, but no immediate gain is expected. That is a measured message: the investment is aimed at the long term, and it does nothing for the problems seen in Mexico this weekend.
For now, then, Red Bull have to extract pace from the tools they already have. Any improvement on the brake issues or the handling Hadjar criticised will have to come from set-up work and the existing development path, not from the new facility. The gap to the leading four teams is small in raw time but stubborn in practice.
What it means
Predict.game’s records place Red Bull fourth in the Formula 1 World Championship with 352 points from 18 rounds, and list two wins in that run. That is a solid standing, but it fits with what Mexico practice showed: a team that is in the championship picture without being the fastest car on the grid.
The form reading is mixed. Verstappen in fifth and Hadjar in the top eight are decent results, yet both sit behind the top four teams that were separated by only a few thousandths at the front. The brake problems and the one-place penalty add friction on race day, though the penalty is unlikely to decide the outcome by itself.
The records hold no next fixture or forecast for Red Bull, so the immediate question is the Mexico race itself: can Verstappen turn a fifth-fastest practice time and a one-place drop into a points haul that protects fourth? With the wind tunnel not due until 2027, any gains for the rest of this season will have to come from the current car.
Sources
- Autosport: F1 Mexico GP: Norris tops final practice by 0.001s from Antonelli autosport.com ↩
- Autosport: Why “ignorance is a superpower” for Antonelli in F1 motorsport.com ↩
- Autosport: Stewards penalize Verstappen, Lawson after “unacceptable” F1 Mexico GP practice clash autosport.com ↩
- Autosport: Red Bull provides timeline for long-awaited new F1 wind tunnel motorsport.com ↩