Lewis Hamilton replaced at Mexican GP as Ferrari announce driver decision
Lewis Hamilton will be replaced by a Ferrari protege as the team announced a change for the Mexican Grand Prix ahead of this weekend's race
Lewis Hamilton is set to be replaced by Antonio Fuoco in the first practice session at the Mexican Grand Prix this week, Ferrari has announced. The switch comes after the US Grand Prix, where Hamilton, who started his career with Ferrari this year after a 12-year stint with Mercedes, finished fourth in both the Sprint race and the main Grand Prix.
Hamilton, who won six of his seven world titles with Mercedes, is currently sixth in the Drivers' Championship standings and hasn't yet secured a podium finish for the Italian team. However, he showed promising form at the Circuit of the Americas over the weekend.
Under current F1 regulations, teams must field a rookie driver in at least two FP1 sessions per car each season. A rookie driver is defined as someone who hasn't started more than two Grands Prix in their career, and Fuoco has not yet featured in an official F1 race weekend.
Fuoco was part of Ferrari's junior scheme until 2018 and has since worked as a Scuderia simulator and development driver. The 29-year-old Italian also clinched victory for Ferrari in the Le Mans 24 Hours race in 2024.
Hamilton has not missed an FP1 session since the start of the season, while his teammate Charles Leclerc has already been replaced twice.
Ferrari made the announcement on X (formerly Twitter), stating: ".@Anto_Fuoco will be kicking off the Mexico City GP weekend in FP1!".
Fuoco announced his participation in the upcoming race on social media, writing: "Got the call. Mexico see you on track for FP1 Let's do this."
In other news, Mercedes' George Russell will be replaced by Fred Vesti in FP1, while Red Bull's Max Verstappen's seat will be taken over by rising star Arvid Lindblad during the same session.
Hamilton, fresh from his performance in the States, was upbeat. Post-race, he said: "I'm finally feeling like I'm on top of the car. I think we still have some improvements we could make.
"We can definitely extract more, particularly on my side, because qualifying wasn't as good as I had hoped and the start wasn't great.
"There are always areas to improve, but it's positive going into the next race, so I hope we can have an even better weekend."
The first practice session (FP1) in Mexico is set to kick off at 7.30pm (BST) on Friday, followed by FP2 at 11pm.
Qualifying starts at 10pm on Saturday after a third practice session, with the main race beginning at 8pm (GMT) on Sunday.
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