Lando Norris pipped Andrea Kimi Antonelli by a thousandth of a second at the top of the FP3 timesheet on Saturday, the two separated by a sliver that will mean very little when qualifying starts. Two days earlier, the Italian had not been in the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez paddock at all.
Mercedes had excused him from media duties on Thursday with a short statement to Sky Sports.
“Kimi is feeling under the weather today as he recovers from a viral illness. As a precaution, the FIA have excused him from his mandatory media duties to give him the chance to rest ahead of the weekend.”
The team’s forecast that he would be back on Friday proved accurate. Antonelli ran both practice sessions on Friday, finishing fourth in FP2 behind a Ferrari-topped order. By the final hour of practice on Saturday he was the only driver within a tenth of Norris.
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The maths at 365 points
A ninth-place finish on Sunday is enough to settle the drivers’ championship whatever anyone else does, according to Grande Prêmio. Antonelli arrives in Mexico on 365 points, 123 clear of team-mate George Russell and 124 ahead of Lewis Hamilton, with four races left after this weekend.
Even scoring nothing would do it if neither Russell nor Hamilton wins the race. At 20 years, 2 months and 7 days old on Sunday, Antonelli would eclipse Sebastian Vettel’s record of 23 years and 134 days as Formula 1’s youngest champion.
Not the only driver in the medical room
Antonelli was not alone on the sick list on Thursday. Cadillac confirmed Valtteri Bottas would also miss media duties while he recovered from an unspecified illness.
Max Verstappen, speaking at the Thursday press conference, said the pattern of late-season absences is familiar when the calendar strings together three race weekends in a row.
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“It is, of course, always quite tough on your body, like three weeks in a row. Sometimes you can get a little bit unlucky with whatever, a stomach bug,” Verstappen told reporters in Mexico City, according to Crash.net.
The Dutchman noted that it is often mechanics and team staff, not just drivers, who come down with something at this point in the year.
Thin air, no second chances
The circuit itself does not help. The Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez sits at 2,240 metres above sea level, by far the highest venue on the F1 calendar. Thinner air means less downforce, hotter engines and, for the human in the car, faster fatigue and a greater risk of mistakes over the race distance.
Williams’s own technical breakdown notes that altitude can disrupt sleep and slow reaction times for drivers and crew alike. For a 20-year-old shaking off a virus a few days earlier, that is the physical backdrop against which he will try to secure a result he can control rather than chase.
Qualifying is at 3pm local time on Saturday, with lights out at 2pm local time on Sunday.
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