Verstappen pulls 0.4s clear of Mercedes pair in second practice

F1 championship leader Verstappen set a scintillating lap time on soft tyres around the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez with a 1m17.301s, leaving him in a league of his own at the top of the FP2 timesheets. 

FP1 pacesetter Valtteri Bottas could only get within 0.424s of Verstappen’s benchmark after two runs on Pirelli’s fastest compound, while his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton was half a second adrift in third. 

Hamilton, who trails Verstappen by 12 points going into the weekend, was unhappy with the balance of his Mercedes in a frustrating session as he endured a scrappy pair of laps with the softest tyres fitted. 

Home favourite Sergio Perez was fourth-quickest, 0.061s down on Hamilton and nearly six-tenths behind his Red Bull teammate Verstappen. 

Carlos Sainz was over a second off the pace as he put his Ferrari fifth, with AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly splitting the Ferrari duo in P6 ahead of Charles Leclerc. 

Yuki Tsunoda, Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso completed a top 10 order that featured all four Honda-powered cars. 

McLaren once again found themselves in the bottom half of the timesheets with Lando Norris only 12th, while his teammate Daniel Ricciardo was left 15th after a gearbox issue limited his running to just seven laps. 

Gearbox problems also hampered George Russell and preventing the Williams driver from setting a lap time. 

Haas rookie Nikita Mazepin was the slowest of the 19 drivers who posted lap times, with the Russian some 4.2s off the pace. 

Full results from second practice for the 2021 F1 Mexican Grand Prix.