Friday practice at the Mexico City Grand Prix was designed to give rookies mileage, but Frederik Vesti made it look like a session with a more serious competitive edge. The Mercedes reserve driver and 2023 Formula 2 runner-up ended first practice in third place, and he did it as the best of the rookies.
That matters because first practice at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez often becomes a data-gathering exercise, especially when it is not a Sprint weekend. Ten rookies were used across the field, so the session was always going to be as much about opportunity as outright pace. Even so, Vesti’s run stood out.
According to Sky Sports, Vesti was less than one tenth behind Kimi Antonelli, who was second behind Charles Leclerc. Leclerc led the session by 0.659s, but the more interesting detail for Mercedes was that Vesti was right in the mix rather than just logging laps quietly in the background.
Why Vesti’s result matters
Vesti’s third place was notable because it was not simply a case of a rookie surviving the session. It was a genuinely competitive lap in a field that included several other young drivers getting valuable track time. In a Friday practice full of rotation, he emerged as the rookie benchmark.
The result also fits the wider shape of the weekend. Ferrari are expected to be strong at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez because the small turbo tends to work well at altitude, and Leclerc’s pace reinforced that expectation. Against that backdrop, Vesti finishing close to Antonelli gives Mercedes something useful to evaluate.
For Vesti, the session was another reminder that he can deliver when given the chance. For everyone else, it was a clear answer to one simple question: among the rookies, Fred Vesti was the quickest in first practice.
Colton Herta also completed 24 laps and earned another super-licence point, underlining how much of the session was about experience as well as speed. But on the timesheet, Vesti’s name was the one that mattered most among the rookies.
