Vettel leads Verstappen, Mercedes lag behind, Albon hits the wall

Ferrari and Red Bull led the way in the second practice session for the Mexican Grand Prix, comfortably ahead of Mercedes.

Sebastian Vettel produced a rapid lap on his first run on the soft tyres, beating team mate Charles Leclerc in all three sectors to end the session almost half a second clear of his team mate around the 76-second lap.

However Max Verstappen managed to get closer in his Red Bull. The driver who has won the last two F1 races at this track ended Friday’s running a tenth of a second behind Vettel.

Leclerc, third, ended the session with a quick spin, though he kept his Ferrari out of the barriers. The same couldn’t be said for Alexander Albon.

The other Red Bull ended the session at the opposite end of the times after Albon lost control of his car on the kerb heading into the turn seven. He spun into a barrier, heavily damaging the right-hand side of his RB14.

The teams began their qualifying simulations after the red flags triggered by Albon were cleared. But neither of the Mercedes could make a significant impression on the front runners. Valtteri Bottas, who went off early in the session, was six-tenths of a second down and Hamilton almost a full second behind.

The world championship leader was clearly unimpressed with the performance of his Mercedes. “Do you fancy giving me some feedback?” he asked stand-in race engineer Marcus Dudley. “Tyres have gone off,” he added. “There’s no grip.”

The Toro Rossos reprised their impressive performance from first practice, but this time used the soft tyres to end the session ‘best of the rest’. Daniil Kvyat, sixth, was within two tenths of a second of Hamilton, while Pierre Gasly was held up by Kimi Raikkonen on one of his laps.

Carlos Sainz Jnr took eighth and Lando Norris joined him in the top 10 despite being one of several drivers to skid off at turn one. The pair were split by Nico Hulkenberg,

There was little to choose between the Racing Point pair. Lance Stroll bounced back from his first practice crash to edge home driver Sergio Perez by four-thousandths of a second.

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Pos.	No.	Driver	Car	Best lap	Gap	Laps
1	5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1’16.607		35
2	33	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Honda	1’16.722	0.115	37
3	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1’17.072	0.465	34
4	77	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1’17.221	0.614	39
5	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1’17.570	0.963	35
6	26	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso-Honda	1’17.747	1.140	40
7	10	Pierre Gasly	Toro Rosso-Honda	1’18.003	1.396	39
8	55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	McLaren-Renault	1’18.079	1.472	38
9	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	1’18.261	1.654	23
10	4	Lando Norris	McLaren-Renault	1’18.349	1.742	36
11	18	Lance Stroll	Racing Point-Mercedes	1’18.362	1.755	38
12	11	Sergio Perez	Racing Point-Mercedes	1’18.366	1.759	34
13	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Renault	1’18.380	1.773	34
14	7	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’18.681	2.074	37
15	8	Romain Grosjean	Haas-Ferrari	1’18.766	2.159	37
16	99	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’18.889	2.282	46
17	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	1’19.306	2.699	37
18	63	George Russell	Williams-Mercedes	1’19.968	3.361	36
19	88	Robert Kubica	Williams-Mercedes	1’20.180	3.573	37
20	23	Alexander Albon	Red Bull-Honda	1’21.665	5.058	5

Second practice visual gaps

Drivers more then ten seconds off the pace omitted.

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