Sky Sports issue apology on air as big issue strikes during Mexico GP coverage

Sky Sports commentator David Croft issued multiple apologies throughout first practice at the Mexico City Grand Prix as technical issues haunted the live broadcast. Only basic coverage of the action was available as gremlins prevented some of the usual features of TV coverage from being used during that first hour of running.

"Apologies for the lack of full coverage here, ladies and gentlemen," said Croft. "We've got a few technical issues that we are working through. There are no on-boards at the moment." He also confirmed that they were unable to show team radio messages.

It meant that, for the whole of practice, they were only able to use the cameras placed around the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez to show what was happening on track. They were unable to switch to on-board cameras to show the driver point of view, as race directors often do during sessions.

Nor could they broadcast team radio from drivers speaking to their race engineers, which often makes for some of the more entertaining aspects of a broadcast. They could at least display on-screen graphics, such as name plates at the bottom of the screen to show viewers which driver they were watching.

At one point, Croft mentioned that there were other staff in the commentary box with himself, Jacques Villeneuve and Karun Chandhok working in real time to try to resolve the problem. But they were unsuccessful and the practice session ended after an hour of on-track action during which time Sky had been limited in terms of its offering to viewers.

Charles Leclerc finished highest in the session, which saw nine rookie drivers replace a swathe of big stars, including Leclerc's Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton and fellow Brit Lando Norris. Arvid Lindblad, in sixth place, was the quickest of those rookies, having taken over Max Verstappen's Red Bull for an hour.

Championship leaders Oscar Piastri nearly lost control of his McLaren on the dusty track at one point, having to react quickly to avoid a spin as he slid aggressively off track. He was fourth quickest, between the two Sauber cars. World Endurance Championship driver Antonio Fuoco, who took over Hamilton's car, was 20th and last, two-and-a-half seconds off the pace set by Leclerc.

Upon his return to the cockpit later on Friday, Verstappen laid down an impressive lap time to top the FP2 timing sheets while Ferrari also showed promise, but McLaren dazzled on their long run simulations, striking fear into the reigning world champion and Helmut Marko, both of whom expressed concern about their chances of beating the papaya cars on Sunday.