Max Verstappen was fastest in the second practice for the Mexico City Grand Prix. The Red Bull driver was four-tenths faster than the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas with his championship rival Lewis Hamilton third. While Red Bull had a four-tenths advantage over Mercedes, it is expected in qualifying that there will be very little between Red Bull and Mercedes.<\/p>\n
Verstappen set the early pace on the medium compound tyre in the session, running over a second clear of the field at one stage and ending the initial runs with a seven-tenths margin to teammate Perez. While his championship rival Hamilton struggled to find a gap leaving him eight hundredths behind his teammate.<\/p>\n
Mercedes go into this weekend needing to claw background to Red Bull in both the drivers and constructors championship. Red Bull has won the previous three races in Mexico City, the afternoon session looking to be more reprehensive of where the pace is.<\/p>\n
These were not directly comparable, as the two teams were using different tyres. Verstappen was on the mediums and Mercedes on the softs. Mercedes are expecting to be behind Red Bull who have dominated in Mexico City since 2018,<\/p>\n
The Dutchman was not only quicker on average, but also right from the start of the run, when the grippier but shorter-lived tyres on the Mercedes car should have had an advantage on the initial laps of the run.<\/p>\n
Hamilton was also given a reprimand after FP1, for not re-entering the track correctly after a mistake in the first session, also ran across the grass on his first stint of the afternoon before working his way back up the timesheet. Sergio Perez put his Red Bull fourth, the Mexican almost five and three quarters behind his teammate.<\/p>\n
Ferrari\u2019s Carlos Sainz was fifth fastest going eight-hundredths faster than the Alpha Tauri of Pierre Gasly. The Spaniard used his second push lap to move ahead of Gasly, it also moved it him ahead of Charles Leclerc, who was three tenths off his team. But, the Monacan said at the end of the session that he was “struggling so much with the engine issues”.<\/p>\n
Yuki Tsunoda was eighth fastest going five-hundredths ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso rounded out the top ten. Vettel had an odd moment when he drove through the McLaren box, but it was productive for the Aston Martin driver who was seven hundredths faster than Fernando Alonso.<\/p>\n
Tsunoda will however be starting at the back, along with Vettel\u2019s teammate Lance Stroll, they have been given penalties for exceeding their power unit components. Kimi R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen was eleventh with teammate Antonio Giovinazzi thirteenth, the two Alfa Romeo\u2019s spilt by the McLaren of Lando Norris.<\/p>\n
McLaren failing to get into the top ten for the second session in a row, Norris\u2019s teammate Daniel Ricciardo was fifteenth. The Australian only managed seven laps before a gearbox issue brought his session to an end. Esteban Ocon was fourteenth seven-tenths off teammate Alonso, but complained the car was “car is turning itself.”<\/p>\n
Mick Schumacher was sixteenth for Haas, the German going ahead of Lance Stroll and Nicolas Latifi, as well as teammate Nikita Mazepin. Mazepin has been called to the stewards for track limits at Turn Eight.<\/p>\n
George Russell failed to set a time because of a gearbox issue which saw him stuck in fifth gear. He was instructed to return to the pits.<\/p>\n
Max Verstappen was fastest in the second practice for the Mexico City Grand Prix. The Red Bull driver was four-tenths faster than the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas with his championship rival Lewis Hamilton third. While Red Bull had a four-tenths advantage over Mercedes, it is expected in qualifying that there will be very little between<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[47,115,116,122,123,125,167,198,199,215,369,390,493,647,707,709,767,814,882,885,1115,1130,1131,1283,1287,1290,1298,1306,1307,1308,1309,1330,1426,1434,1544,1571,1637,1638,1642,1791,1794,1808,1843,2105,2149,2152,2186],"class_list":["post-9808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-race-reports","tag-47","tag-alfa-romeo","tag-alfa-romeo-ferrari","tag-alpha-tauri","tag-alpha-tauri-honda","tag-alpine","tag-antonio-giovinazzi","tag-aston-martin","tag-aston-martin-mercedes","tag-autodromo-hermanos-rodriguez","tag-carlos-sainz-jr","tag-charles-leclerc","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-esteban-ocon","tag-fernando-alonso","tag-ferrari","tag-fp2","tag-george-russell","tag-haas","tag-haas-ferrari","tag-kimi-raikkonen","tag-lance-stroll","tag-lando-norris","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mclaren","tag-mclaren-mercedes","tag-mercedes","tag-mexico","tag-mexico-city","tag-mexico-city-gp","tag-mexico-city-grand-prix","tag-mick-schumacher","tag-nicolas-latifi","tag-nikita-mazepin","tag-pierre-gasly","tag-practice-report","tag-red-bull","tag-red-bull-honda","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-sebastian-vettel","tag-second-practice","tag-sergio-perez","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-valtteri-bottas","tag-williams","tag-williams-mercedes","tag-yuki-tsunoda"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}