Rosberg tops FP2 from Red Bull pair in Mexico

Nico Rosberg set the fastest time of second practice for the Mexican Grand Prix as Red Bull and Ferrari looked competitive on Friday.

Having suffered a fire on his rear brakes during a tricky FP1, Rosberg enjoyed a more comfortable afternoon session as he set a best time of 1:25.531 on the soft tyre. With the track still low on grip, Red Bull set its fastest times later in the session and it was Daniil Kvyat who was Rosberg's nearest challenger, ending FP2 less than a quarter of a second adrift.

Daniel Ricciardo was third fastest in the other Red Bull, less than 0.1s slower than his team-mate, with Lewis Hamilton ending the session 0.43s adrift of Rosberg. Ferrari finished the session fifth and sixth with Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen respectively as Vettel ended up 0.023s slower than Hamilton.

While he finished FP2 seventh quickest, Valtteri Bottas had a high-speed incident when he lost control of his Williams under braking for Turn 1 at the end of a 1.2km straight. As the car moved to the right, Bottas tried to catch it but speared left and wiped his front wing off agains the wall on the outside of the track before sliding to a stop in the run-off area.

Bottas was able to recover to the pits after his incident, but there were two red flags during a disjointed session. Max Verstappen - who set the pace in FP1 despite cutting the track - crashed after just four minutes as he lost the rear exiting the stadium section and hit the wall on the outside of the final corner, leaving him with just two laps to his name.

Romain Grosjean was the cause of the second red flag, though his stoppage was due to a technical issue as he parked his Lotus in the Esses and the session briefly halted to recover it.

There was some encouragement for McLaren as it finished with both drivers in the top ten as Fernando Alonso finished the session eighth ahead of Jenson Button. It was some extremely welcome running for Button who had missed a lot of FP1 due to a power unit issue.

Track grip remained low, with a number of drivers running of at Turn 1 and Hamilton spinning at Turn 4, before late rain saw the intermediate tyre used for the closing minutes.

AS IT HAPPENED: Mexican Grand Prix FP2

Technical analysis: United States

Scene at the United States Grand Prix

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