Mercedes' George Russell was quickest in second free practice for the Mexican Grand Prix in Mexico City, which was extended to 90 minutes to allow for another Pirelli tyre test of 2023 prototype compounds.
Russell was one of a small number of drivers in FP2 allowed to run this year's regular tyres. Others included Yuki Tsunoda and Esteban Ocon, who were second and third quickest respectively, with Lewis Hamilton leading those running exclusively on the prototypes.
The session saw a lengthy 20 minute red flag after Charles Leclerc crashed at turn 8 just over half an hour in, giving the Ferrari mechanics plenty of work to do overnight to get him ready for final practice on Saturday.
It was still warm and sunny at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez as the teams and drivers fired up their cars for second free practice for the Mexican Grand Prix. However, as had been the case a week ago in Austin, this was an atypical session extended from 60 to 90 minutes in order to accommodate another Pirelli test of prototype tyres in preparation for the 2023 season. Last week had been about exploring the hard compound candidates, while today the focus would be on their soft counterparts. The cars were running strictly mandated programmes, with no idea which test tyres they were using at any given point.
When the lights at the end of pit lane went out, Max Verstappen was first out on track with the Red Bull sporting a set of the prototypes. Sergio Perez was also early to head out, to the loud and enthusiastic cheers of the Mexican crowd for whom he was without doubt the star attraction of the weekend. Having been quickest in FP1, Ferrari's Carlos Sainz soon returned to the top of the timesheets with a lap of 1:21.943s ahead of Pierre Gasly; ten minutes into the lengthened session, Verstappen was third ahead of Charles Leclerc, and Perez fifth followed by Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes.
Five of the regular drivers had sat out FP1 in favour of young rookie drivers. Because they hadn't had a chance to run in the earlier session, Esteban Ocon, George Russell, Alex Albon, Yuki Tsunoda and Kevin Magnussen were all permitted to spend half the session on this year's regular compounds before joining the Pirelli programme. However Magnussen wasn't among the early runners to head out, as Haas continued to work on replacing the engine in the Haas after MGU-H problems in FP1 for his stand-in Pietro Fittipaldi which meant he would have a five place grid penalty to overcome on Sunday. Albon also initially stayed in the garage as the Williams mechanics worked on an issue related to setting the power unit cooling system.
After completing a feeler lap, Russell jumped to the top after going two tenths quicker than Sainz, making him the quickest of those running this year's regular medium tyres. Tsunoda and Ocon were eighth and ninth respectively on the same compound. Russell then switched to a set of soft tyres and further raised the bar to 1:19.970s, with Tsunoda doing likewise to move up to second - although the AlphaTauri was still eight tenths behind the Mercedes. Ocon also moved onto the red-walled tyres and popped up to third, while Magnussen and Albon finally rolled off pit lane just before the half hour mark. Albon was straight out for a single push on the soft tyres, while Magnussen opted to get right down to work on the test programme.
Hamilton was now the fastest runner on the mystery Pirelli tyres, 1.539s behind his Mercedes team mate, with Perez having moved ahead of Verstappen, Leclerc and Sainz, and Alfa Romeo's Valtteri Bottas ninth ahead of Gasly. Of course, the unknown nature of the tyres meant that comparisons were essentially meaningless with teams not having control of their set-up, run duration or fuel load all of which had been stipulated by Pirelli. Even so, Daniel Ricciardo certainly wasn't holding back: the McLaren was sliding all over the dirty, greasy track before coming back in to allow the mechanics to remove the engine covers and spend time delving into the innards of the MCL36.
The sedate session took a somewhat more dramatic turn just after 30 minutes in, when Leclerc triggered the first red flag of FP2. He had strayed onto the dirtier part of the track and lost the back end of the Ferrari going too quickly into turn 8. He was sent spinning off and into a crunching impact with the barriers, demolishing the rear wing and leaving the scene strewn with debris. It required a lengthy 20 minute red flag to allow the marshals (one sporting a skeleton face mask ahead of the Día de los Muertos) to undertake clean-up duties, while Leclerc trudged back to pit lane for his walk of shame back to the Ferrari garage..
Having already lost so much time and with a growing threat of rain in the area, the drivers were all keen to get back out and get on with their test programmes as soon as possible. When the track went green again, Verstappen led the way with everyone now running the prototypes. Lance Stroll set a proper lap time, the last to do so this afternoon, but the Aston Martin driver was another already saddled with a grid drop for Sunday as a result of his penalty for clashing with Fernando Alonso last week.
The build-up of cloud and the late hour meant that the track temperature was dropping, and wear and tear on the tyres meant drivers were starting to struggle for grip. Alonso was among those having to fight to keep his car pointing in the right direction, while his Alpine team mate Ocon fretted about the engine sounding strange in the final ten minutes. No one had been able to improve their earlier times, and the top ten remained unchanged by the time a red flag came out two minutes before the scheduled conclusion when a hydraulic failure for Zhou Guanyu forced the Alfa Romeo to pull over in the stadium section.
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