What happened: Charles Leclerc completed a Friday sweep at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, lowering his afternoon benchmark to 1m17.827s after he paced the opening Mexico GP practice. McLaren's Lando Norris finished second, while Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton retired early.

Why it matters: Ferrari's pace sets an early benchmark at the high-altitude circuit, where cooling and power unit demands challenge the field under the 2026 technical regulations. Hamilton's stoppage leaves the garage with reduced long-run data ahead of Saturday.

What to watch: Third practice and qualifying run Saturday ahead of the grand prix.