There was plenty of fanfare for Pato O’Ward ( Pato O’ ) in the buildup earlier in the week, including over 3,000 fans showing up for a recent sponsor appearance at the Plaza Reforma 222 shopping mall in downtown Mexico City.

However, the 25-year-old from Monterrey, who regularly drives for Arrow McLaren in the IndyCar Series, was strictly about business once he strapped into title contender Lando Norris’s McLaren MCL38 as part of F1’s rookie practice requirements.

The outing turned into an eventful hour session for O’Ward, dodging some of the carnage to log 21 laps and ending just over 0.3s from teammate Oscar Piastri’s best time (1m18.958s).

Fans show their support for Pato O’Ward, McLaren F1 Team

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

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Overall, O’Ward was simply trying to provide the team with valuable feedback with recent upgrades, including a new floor.

“My job was to gather information for the team because there were obviously upgrades on my car and there was a big emphasis on being consistent and being able to gather that information,” O’Ward told Motorsport.com in an exclusive. 

“That was the main priority. Obviously, it was a pretty hectic FP1 session; a lot of red flags, a lot of time spent in the garage. But, that’s how it goes. You’ve got three or four flying laps on the hard (tire compound) and then one lap on the soft.

“I’m pretty pleased with how we were able to tackle all of that information and we were able to extract what we needed to from our run plan, because it was definitely not a very clean session in terms of other guys having accidents — and glad everyone’s all right — but definitely a session that threw curve balls at us.”

Pato O’Ward, McLaren F1 Team

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Quickly up to speed

When asked how close to the limit he was able to reach considering this was his first session of the year at a track — Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez — he’d not yet driven, O’Ward provided a candid comparison:

“I mean, put this in the scenario: put a Formula 1 driver in an IndyCar for practice one and I guarantee you they don’t get within a 1.5s of whoever the leader was,” O’Ward said. 

“That just doesn’t happen. You can’t really test these cars and at a track that you don’t really know, and in a car that you don’t know at all that you’ve never driven.

“The only way of extracting the most out of a car is you need to find its limit; by finding the limit, you need to go over the limit, but obviously, when you go over the limit, you play with risk and when you’re playing with risk, there’s a possibility that if it does go wrong, there’s going to be a lot of very unhappy people with you. And that is the first thing I did not want to do, so I was pleased with the job that I did and what I got to extract from the car.”

Oscar Piastri completed the final practice session ahead of the Mexican Grand Prix on top of the timesheets, 0.059 seconds clear of McLaren Formula 1 team-mate Lando Norris.

The two McLarens had sat about three tenths clear of the rest of the field led by early session headliner Carlos Sainz, as the Ferrari driver could not capitalise on his pace in the first half of the session.

In response to FP2 being employed as a Pirelli tyre test, the drivers spent the early laps getting experience with the soft and medium tyres.

Max Verstappen set the first lap on soft tyres straight out of the gate as he sought to make up for limited running on Friday; the Dutchman’s power unit was changed to overcome the air leak that plagued him yesterday. He set the pace with a 1m18.397s, but this was swiftly beaten.

George Russell, another driver recovering from Friday’s woes after his FP2 necessitated a chassis switch, found a 1m18.284s – but Lewis Hamilton had this beaten by about a tenth and a half.

Sainz then broke below the 1m18s barrier to log a 1m17.825s lap, which team-mate Charles Leclerc got close to; Sainz then improved to a 1m17.447s to raise the bar, and improved again by a tenth to continue his presence at the top of the order.

Verstappen kicked off the bonafide qualifying simulations with a 1m17.003s but looked scruffy in the middle sector, and this left his lap open to Lando Norris’ subsequent effort. The Briton put together a 1m16.551s to put distance between himself and Verstappen, although Oscar Piastri found half a tenth over his team-mate to go quickest.

Sainz was third fastest with a 1m16.832s, ensuring that he also moved ahead of Verstappen – who struggled with front braking and failed to improve on his follow-up effort.

Although Hamilton felt that his own lap to go fifth fastest had been a good one, he was alarmed by the over-half-second pace deficit to the McLarens.

A late attempt by Charles Leclerc to rise higher than sixth looked to be on as he improved in the opening sector, but lost time in the middle part of the lap thanks to traffic on his lap at the death of the session.

Yuki Tsunoda was seventh fastest over Russell, while Kevin Magnussen and Liam Lawson (who suffered a brief spin in the Foro Sol in the opening half of the session) completed the top 10. Magnussen did not improve on his first effort with the softs having locked up at Turn 12, but a second attempt brought him into the top half of the field.

This was at Alex Albon’s expense, as the Anglo-Thai shook off his FP1 crash and the subsequent missing of FP2 to outpace team-mate Franco Colapinto by two tenths – the Williams split by Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas.

It’s been a rocky few weeks for Denny Hamlin, who was open in discussing why he and the team aren’t on their ‘A-game’ during this critical stage of the 2024 playoffs.

Hamlin, the winningest driver in NASCAR Cup Series history without a title, currently sits fifth of eight, 27 points below the cut-line. At Vegas, a fuel gamble allowed him to snag a top-ten finish that helped to limit the impact, but it was still an off day for Hamlin.

He hasn’t won during the playoffs yet, and unless “one or two of the guys up front stub their toe,” there likely isn’t a path for him to advance on points. So what’s going on with the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team and is it time for a change on the pit crew roster?

“No, you ride with the group you got,” said Hamlin in a Saturday media availability. “They’re certainly in a slump, for sure. But, we got to ride it out and feel like that’s the best group we can put on pit road. And certainly, it’s not due to talent or anything like that. They have all the keys they need for that. They were the best pit crew for the first quarter of this year.

“But, certainly, it’s been a lot of different issues on pit road. Pretty much most times we come down (pit road), it’s been different things, so can’t really pinpoint one consistent problem we’ve had. So, just have to see where it goes.”

Lacking the speed

Compounding the issue is the fact that Hamlin isn’t as fast we’d expect him to be. The car seems slightly off, which makes rebounding from such mistakes a much bigger challenge.

“We’re not leading laps,” explained Hamlin, who has led just five laps through the first seven races of the playoffs. But that’s not the only factor, according to the veteran driver.

“That’s definitely an indicator of speed. We haven’t done that over the last several weeks, certainly. You know, I don’t know. Again, I think some of it is schedule. We’ve had three of these typical ovals we’ve had in the series – Bristol is one of them we’ve ran top-three all day. Kansas, every time we got right at the lead, we had a bad pit stop.  And then, (Las) Vegas, obviously, was just wheels came off on that one. And that’s been seven weeks’ worth. You have the road courses. I’m not going to lead a bunch of laps there. Not going to show a ton of speed there. And then the superspeedways. So, it just feels like forever.”

But it’s important to realize that despite all of these issues, Hamlin is still in contention. Half of the playoff field has been eliminated but the No. 11 remains, as Hamlin himself points out: “…We still have a chance, even this late in the game.”

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Grant Enfinger had already locked himself into the Championship 4 via a win in the Round of 8, but he decided to go out and do it again for good measure. Two weeks after his Talladega win, he captured the checkered flag at Homestead as well after a masterful fuel-save.

“I felt I saved at least 20% more than I did in the first run, but Jeff (Stankiewicz, crew chief) was on me pretty hard obviously … Hard to beat these two weeks,” said Enfinger, who drives the No. 9 CR7 Motorsports Chevrolet. 

It’s Enfinger’s second consecutive win in this round alone (and his total for the season), heading to Phoenix in two weeks with all of the momentum. He’s getting hot at the right time as he tries to rectify last year’s tough championship loss.

“It’s definitely good (to be me right now),” smiled Enfinger. “We’ve had potential all year and there’s been some times I didn’t execute and there’s been some times we just had bad luck. But maybe this is the time we got our momentum.”

Fuel-save mastery and misery

This is Enfinger’s 12th career NASCAR Truck Series win. His status as a veteran driver was on full display as he maintained his advantage while taking every opportunity he could lift out of the throttle and draft with other trucks, saving fuel.

While several trucks ran out in the final moments of the race, the veteran Enfinger was not among them. Running second with two laps to go, Layne Riggs dropped to the apron as he was out of fuel. Playoff driver Nick Sanchez then moved into second, only to run out as well on the final lap. Riggs finished 22nd and Sanchez 13th.

Enfinger actually crossed the line over 17 seconds clear of the closest competition and still had enough fuel to do burnouts! It was a statement victory that ended with Ty Majeski a distant second, Connor Mosack third, Corey Heim fourth, and Tyler Ankrum fifth. Stewart Friesen, Daniel Dye, Rajah Caruth, Christian Eckes, and Taylor Gray rounded out the top-ten.

Enfinger’s comeback and the final run to the finish

It was not all smooth sailing for Enfinger, though. Contact on a mid-race restart with Christian Eckes forced him to make an unscheduled pit stop and put him behind for a bit. When the final restart occurred with 83 laps to go, he was back in 20th but was also one of a handful of drivers who had taken their final set of tires.

They all sliced through the field and luckily for them, the caution flag never flew again. With about 35 laps to go, most of the leaders not on Enfinger’s strategy came in under green for their final set of tires.

With 25 laps to go, a charging Enfinger moved into the second position. At that point, Heim was around 30 seconds back. It didn’t take Enfinger long to run down Riggs, passing him for the lead with an outside with 22 laps remaining.

Dawson Sutton and Tanner Gray ran long, saving their final set of tires while hoping for a lucky caution. It never cam and both had to pit under green. With ten laps left, Heim had stalled out and was no longer gaining large chunks of time on the race leaders.

It was game over as Enfinger managed to save enough fuel while his closest rivals fell to the wayside.

Update on playoff standings and Mills’ condition

Looking at the points standings ahead of the elimination race at Martinsville, Heim is looking very secure at +49 points above the cut-line. Christian Eckes sits at +38 and Ty Majeski is at +22. Sitting within the elimination zone are Rajah Caruth (-22 points), Taylor Gray (-24 points), Tyler Ankrum (-41 points), and Sanchez (-43 points).

During the middle of the race, there was a scary incident where Connor Jones lost his cool and punted Matt Mills into the outside wall. He quickly climbed from the truck as fire erupted while NASCAR penalized Jones two laps for reckless driving. Mills has since been transported to a local hospital for further evaluation.

The FIA is to revise the wording of its controversial racing guidelines after a meeting with the Formula 1 drivers in Mexico in the wake of Max Verstappen’s tactics against Lando Norris at Austin.

The governing body is understood to have accepted that changes to the guidelines were required to close a loophole Verstappen has been exploiting regarding strong defending when under attack from another car, with other instances of questionable tactics also being targeted.

Motorsport.com understands it will present its suggested revisions back to the drivers for approval at another meeting with them in Qatar next month and because these are guidelines they can be used by the stewards immediately rather than requiring sign-off by other FIA bodies.

There could be a potential issue in that Grand Prix Drivers’ Association signs off on F1’s racing guidelines and the drivers are not united on the incidents that occurred last weekend.

Sauber driver Valtteri Bottas said on Thursday in Mexico that “some drivers are pushing the limits of the regulations more and almost like kind of taking the piss out of it”.

The usual post-FP2 drivers’ meeting for the Mexico event ran for an unusually long time, as, Motorsport.com understands, the FIA briefing and explanation of Norris’s penalty for overtaking Verstappen off the track late in their Austin battle was followed by a GPDA meeting.

The stewards of the Mexico meeting attended along with the team sporting managers as usual, along with the sporting representative of Formula One Management.

Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38, battles with Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

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During the meeting, the drivers outlined their positions on what Verstappen has been doing, with some siding strongly with Norris’s point of view – expressed post-race in Austin and again on the Mexico media day that he was “no longer the attacking car, [Verstappen] was” – while others felt Verstappen’s tactics were hard but fair within the rules as they are currently written.

However, although getting complete driver unanimity is always going to be a tough ask, Motorsport.com understands there is enough support at this stage for the guidelines changes to be accepted before the end of the current campaign and following the Qatar meeting.

In a statement provided to media, the FIA said of the meeting, “there was a general commitment to continue to update the driving standards guidelines”.

“Bearing in mind the drivers requested the drivers’ racing guidelines and agreed to their introduction along with the GPDA,” the statement added, “each time they are updated it is consultation with the drivers.

“It is generally accepted that they should continue to evolve, not because of isolated incidents such as Austin, but driven by the desire to bring consistency to determinations and decisions from the stewards.”

The last significant evolution of the guidelines – first introduced at the drivers’ request in 2022 – is understood to have occurred after the 2023 Singapore GP and in the Mexico meeting while there were specific disagreements the overall tone of the meeting was collaborative.