Red Bull confident Verstappen will avoid penalty in Mexico

Red Bull suspects a hydraulic failure caused Max Verstappen’s late stoppage in second practice and is confident he will avoid a grip drop for the Formula 1 Mexican Grand Prix.

Verstappen dominated Friday practice at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriquez circuit as he headed a Red Bull 1-2 in both sessions.

There was late concern for the Dutchman when his Red Bull car suddenly suffered a complete power shutdown - similar to Daniel Ricciardo’s failure in Austin - on the run to Turn 1 in the closing stages of FP2.

But Red Bull team principal Christian Horner confirmed after the session the issue was not engine-related.

"It’s a hydraulic issue of some sort," Horner told Sky Sports F1. "So we need to get the car back to understand what’s caused it.

"Then if it is an engine change, he still has got one in his pool so he should be all right but we need to get the car back first of all to understand it."

Asked if he was concerned about the late problem, Verstappen replied: “For the moment not, we think it was a hydraulic failure.

“We don’t know what it is exactly, as the car is still over there.”

Red Bull finished over a second clear of its nearest rivals on the same tyre compound in both sessions, leaving Verstappen hopeful of the team’s prospects of challenging for pole position and a second victory in a row in Mexico.

“We have a good car, good downforce, good mechanical grip, we knew that, you could see that already in Monaco, today again it worked really well,” he explained.

“Today has been really good but we have to keep on working of course to try and be better.”