The Latest Breaking News from Mercedes

Verstappen ended up third after the Ferrari pair had nipped ahead on the first Q3 runs and could not beat them even though neither Leclerc nor Sainz improved on their second efforts.

Leclerc will start ahead of his team-mate Carlos Sainz and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen after the one-hour qualifying session, which is split into three segments with five cars each being knocked out in Q1 and Q2 before the top-10 shootout of Q3.

Experienced power unit engineer Meignan will return to France after a four-year spell at Mercedes HPP in Brixworth, followed by a slightly shorter stint at Ferrari, where he acted as Head of Department at both outfits.

Behind Verstappen, the battle for outright pace looks to be very close in conditions and through corner types that somewhat negate the RB19’s usual strengths. And in the long run exercises at FP2’s end, McLaren, through Lando Norris, seemed particularly strong.

Red Bull's Max Verstappen scored pole position in Mexico last year, leading the Mercedes of George Russell. 

Behind Verstappen, the battle for outright pace looks to be very close in conditions and through corner types that somewhat negate the RB19’s usual strengths. And in the long run exercises at FP2’s end, McLaren, through Lando Norris, seemed particularly strong.

Just five days after finishing a close second on the road to Max Verstappen at COTA, Hamilton was 11th in FP1 and seventh in FP2, 0.338s off the pacesetting Red Bull driver in a tightly-packed field.

After Daniel Ricciardo, Norris, Verstappen and Alex Albon had enjoyed brief spells in the top spot during the opening quarter of the one-hour session, Verstappen seized it again with a 1m19.511s set on the standard 2023 Pirelli C4 mediums rather than the prototype variety he had started on before pitting…

Three-time world champion Verstappen was fastest in Free Practice 1, by 0.095s from Alex Albon’s Williams, and also paced FP2 with a fastest time of 1m18.686s.