At Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico, local driver Pato O’Ward took over the McLaren of Lando Norris for FP1. This marks the third Free Practice appearance run for him since his first during the 2022 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend. This was his first in front of his home crowd.
The Mexican placed P13 during the session, 1.297s behind Mercedes’ George Russell who topped the charts with a lap time of 1:17.998. He was ahead of regular drivers, such as Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and Haas’ Kevin Magnussen.
Even though the session was disrupted by a red flag caused by the crash between Williams’ Alex Albon and Ollie Bearman’s Ferrari, O’Ward was still extremely satisfied with his performance.
“It really is a dream come true to be driving a Formula One car in front of my home country. It was a very chaotic, very busy session. I’m super happy that I was able to help out the team in a lot of things that we wanted to scan, wanted to find some more information of.
“Obviously, the red flags weren’t ideal for some more running, but I’m happy with what we got done and we ran through our whole programme smoothly.”
Driving a championship contender’s car definitely comes with a high level of stress, with strict instructions to not shunt the car or go beyond the limit, and O’Ward stated that he didn’t necessarily push the car to 100% and instead focused on helping the team collect the necessary data for the weekend.
The Mexican comfortably added that he didn’t feel too pressured getting into Norris’ car.
“I mean, you obviously drive at a bit less than what it is at full potential, but the most important thing is that I help the team, that’s my job. Whenever they give me a test, then I can start risking it and really extract the maximum out of what I’m given.
“But when you’ve go, four flying laps before you put on a soft, you obviously don’t want to get greedy because it is a somewhat penalising track in especially in the high speed corners.
“So no, I wasn’t really pressured, to be honest. I was just really looking forward to the opportunity and in really helping the team and kind of getting some more knowledge into my memory bank that I can apply for next time.”
The Arrow McLaren IndyCar driver is a definitely crowd favourite in Mexico, surrounded by the love and cheers from his fellow locals as shown on social media at an event he held.
“Yeah, I mean, they made me feel like I was some kind of pop star. I certainly don’t feel like a pop star.
“But it really is the first experience that I’ve ever had to have such recognition and such a warm welcome at a race weekend.
“And they really are the best. You know, they’re here to support. And I’ve definitely felt it even prior to getting here.
“But when I got here, it was definitely like, ‘wow’.”
