The Latest Breaking News from Fernando Alonso

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.

The team finished the session with Lance Stroll in 18th and Fernando Alonso in 20th, but neither driver got in representative laps on soft tyres after a scrappy session.

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.

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.

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.

Verstappen is pretty much unstoppable this year and if the race follows the signs, he has another win all wrapped up in Mexico already. The circuit is a perfect match for Red Bull’s car and engine and the Dutch driver has won four of the last five races there.

After switching from Alpine, Alonso's 2023 got off to a positive start with six podiums in the opening eight races, as Aston was transformed into Red Bull's regular closest rival with its work on the downwash car concept over the winter.

The Silverstone-based outfit had begun the 2023 campaign as Red Bull’s main challenger, with Fernando Alonso rolling off a run of podium finishes early in the season.

Everything's bigger in Texas, according to popular belief and brass-plated belt buckles. While the on-track spectacle across Formula 1's sprint and grand prix races at the Circuit of the Americas largely did not deliver on such hyperbole, the post-race ramifications certainly did as the theatre ensued in the stewards' room.