‘I’m really keeping my expectations level’ – Westcott keen to stay realistic for Shanghai Qualifying despite promising Practice pace

Payton Westcott shone in her first Practice session as a full-time F1 ACADEMY driver with a top-three finish, but was eager to temper her own expectations ahead of Qualifying in Shanghai.

The Mercedes-backed driver finished third fastest in the sole Free Practice session of the weekend, setting a time of 2:05.041 to slot in behind leader Alisha Palmowski and Ferrari’s Alba Larsen, becoming the lead rookie on the timesheets.

While Westcott has experienced Qualifying in the series before — the American participated in last season’s finale in Las Vegas as a Wild Card driver — she believes that it’s best not to get carried away after her strong Practice showing.

“For me, based on this Practice session, I want to make sure that I don’t set my expectations too high, and keep them back where I originally imagined at the beginning of the weekend,” she said.

“I don’t want to let this get ahead of me and then worry about where I am. I’m really keeping my expectations level and my head straight.

“I definitely showed some pace. I think Alba and I were on similar run plans and Alisha did something completely different, so that gave her a good advantage. Looking good going into Qualifying so obviously this gave us some confidence.”

With only a few hours to review her performance ahead of Qualifying, the 16-year-old added that any adjustments she and PREMA Racing make to the car will have to take the track evolution into consideration.

READ MORE: PRACTICE: Palmowski leads the way in opening session of 2026 in Shanghai

Shanghai International Circuit is already a technical challenge for the drivers, which was complicated by the dusty conditions seen in the early minutes of Practice. However, with an hour of action in F1 scheduled in between the two sessions, the surface grip will change significantly.

“It’ll definitely be interesting to observe because in Vegas, it was really difficult to tell with the fact it was a street circuit, and also how cold it was, and the rain,” Westcott explained. “I think that those factors kind of threw it off a bit in Vegas because when they did open up the Strip, it allowed other cars on track and they dropped oil or whatever. It’ll be interesting for me to observe going into this for the first time with these circumstances.

“We’ll be looking at the data, making some changes with the car, different improvements. Obviously with the F1 cars now going out, it’ll be a completely different track going into Qualifying so adapting to that will definitely give me an advantage. Hopefully we do well!”