Charles Leclerc ended Friday’s running at the Mexico City Grand Prix as the quickest driver on track as he beat Lando Norris and George Russell to the top of the timesheets in FP2.
10 drivers had vacated their seats for the first hour of practice to give rookies a chance to run, so nearly half the grid had track time to recover. It was no surprise, then, that a long queue of cars had formed at the end of the pit lane by the point the light turned green at 1600 local time.
One of the first to venture out was Haas’ Esteban Ocon, who reported that he had “no power steering” on his installation laps, forcing him to head back to the garage just as team mate Ollie Bearman momentarily pulled to the side of the track.
While the Briton was able to get going again and join his team mate in the pits, Max Verstappen set an early benchmark of 1m 20.474s on a set of soft tyres, which was quickly eclipsed by Arvid Lindblad and Isack Hadjar.
Once the opening efforts were complete for most – with the notable exception of Leclerc, who only just held onto his car following a scary snap – Lewis Hamilton led for Ferrari, having posted a 1m 18.741s.
However, Leclerc’s first representative time was enough to edge out Hamilton by nearly five-tenths as he avoided being caught out by lock-ups that drivers up and down the grid, including McLaren’s Norris, continued to suffer.
Traffic was also proving to be an issue for some, especially Verstappen and Liam Lawson – following Williams’ Carlos Sainz, they came through Turn 12 side-by-side and neither was willing to back out, resulting in contact that shed debris across the circuit and prompted a short red flag disruption.
Lawson insisted that the Red Bull racer “literally drove into me” as the incident was noted by the stewards, Verstappen returning to action with just under 40 minutes to go.
Focus shifted back towards cutting down lap times, with Norris successfully doing so as he surged into first place for McLaren, demoting Leclerc to P2 whilst wide moments and a big lock-up affected the Monegasque’s laps on the soft compound.
Unfortunately for Ferrari, their struggles continued in the form of an issue for Hamilton, who was ordered to stop the car on track. A Virtual Safety Car was deployed before an earlier radio message revealed that he said: “Something’s wrong with the power. I lost all power from Turn 13.”
Leclerc offered the Italian squad some hope as he reclaimed P1 with a 1m 17.827s, denying Norris and standings leader Kimi Antonelli prior to Russell’s improvement to P3, where he found himself only 0.003s adrift of the McLaren driver’s attempt.
No one toppled Leclerc in the final stage of second practice, leaving him as the fastest driver on Friday at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez ahead of Norris, Russell, Antonelli and Verstappen.
Hadjar was sixth in the other Red Bull as he led Lindblad and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, with Lawson and Oscar Piastri rounding out the top 10. Hamilton marginally missed out after his early end to the session and was followed by Fernando Alonso, the Haas pair of Ocon and Bearman, and Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg.
Franco Colapinto claimed P16 from Sainz, Sergio Perez (Cadillac), Alex Albon (Williams), Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), Valtteri Bottas (Cadillac) and Gabriel Bortoleto, the last of whom eventually made it out on track after Audi amended a technical issue.
With the first day of track action now complete, the drivers and teams will have the opportunity to reset before tackling Free Practice 3 on Saturday 1130 local time, ahead of Qualifying later in the day at 1500.
