Sainz leads Mexico FP2, Russell and Verstappen hit with issues

Carlos Sainz ended second practice at the Mexico City Grand Prix fastest after the session was shortened by a heavy crash by George Russell. Title leader Max Verstappen also his trouble, retiring from the session with a recurring power unit problem. Russell took too big a bite out of the curb at Turn 8 and bottomed out, sending his car spinning off the road and crashing heavily into the barriers on the outside of Turn 9. Looking winded, he clambered from the car without assistance but was taken to the medical center for precautionary check-ups, after which he was declared fit. The barriers weren’t so fortunate, and 23 minutes — more than a quarter of the extended 90-minute session — were lost to repairs to the Tecpro barriers to allow the session to resume. Running didn’t last long for Verstappen, however, who was told to retire his car with only four untimed laps on the board with the same power unit problem that forced him to end FP1 early. Earlier in the session he had reported hearing “a weird noise in the engine.” “This noise is very disturbing,” he radioed. “This can’t be normal.” He also reported brake problems before pitting. With Alex Albon failing to take part in the session owing to incomplete repairs from his big FP1 crash, 17 drivers were left to continue with the rest of the session. It was crucial for Pirelli that running could get back underway, with each driver required to embark on a painstaking planned program dictated by the tire supplier to validate its 2025 tire compounds. Each driver was given two sets of tires — one of the three compounds in use this weekend and another corresponding compound from next year’s allocation. All tires were unmarked and without their usual identifying colors, and each driver completed an identical series of performance runs and race simulations with matching fuel loads. Only the five drivers who handed their cars to stand-in drivers during FP1 — Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Zhou Guanyu — were allowed to break from the program with a fresh set of medium tires to make up for lost lap time, though what had originally been a 30-minute allowance was shortened to just the final few minutes of the session. The blind Pirelli testing program meant times were impossible to compare and unrepresentative of the rest of the weekend’s running. Oscar Piastri was second and 0.178s behind Sainz, with Yuki Tsunoda third for the second straight session, lapping 0.179 off the pace. Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris followed on the medium tires, with Kevin Magnussen, Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas, Sergio Perez and Liam Lawson completing the top 10. Fernando Alonso finished the session 11th ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, Esteban Ocon, Lance Stroll, Franco Colapinto, Pierre Gasly, Zhou Guanyu and the crashed-out Russell. The untimed Verstappen and Albon were 19th and 20th.