Max Verstappen put Mercedes on notice with an impressive four-tenths advantage in Practice 2 at the Mexico City Grand Prix.
Red Bull entered this weekend as favourites and the Dutch driver only needed one flying lap on soft tyres to set his benchmark of 1m17.301s on Friday afternoon.
Valtteri Bottas would be his nearest challenger and the only man within half a second in P2, though would set his best lap time on the eighth lap of his stint suggesting there was plenty of pace still in his car.
Lewis Hamilton had a scruffy session with a first run blighted by traffic and then had oversteer issues on his soft tyre run, leaving him third.
Sitting P2 and P3 as we enter the final 15 minutes of running on Friday. ? #MexicoGP pic.twitter.com/6CxQmzTKdV
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) November 5, 2021
Local favourite Sergio Perez was just behind the Briton in fourth, suggesting he could be in a position to give Red Bull’s championship hopes a boost if he can finish ahead on Sunday.
Behind the top four was a half-second gap back to Carlos Sainz in fifth while teammate Charles Leclerc was seventh as Ferrari asserted themselves as the third-quickest team.
AlphaTauri appears to be their main challengers at this point with Pierre Gasly sixth and Yuki Tsunoda eighth.
Sebastian Vettel, who had a small moment driving through the wrong pit box early on, and Fernando Alonso rounded out the top 10.
Alfa Romeo has more P11s than any team this season and Kimi Raikkonen suggested another was possible in FP2.
The Finn had Lando Norris behind him in 12th for McLaren, while Daniel Ricciardo had a gearbox problem en route to P15.
Mick Schumacher was 16th ahead of Lance Stroll and Nicholas Latifi. Nikita Mazepin was 19th, as George Russell joined Ricciardo by having gearbox problems, ending his session after just two laps.
Gearbox problems for George Russell ?
The Williams driver has returned to the pits for running repairs ⚙️#MexicoGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/1cMuVpuViR
— Formula 1 (@F1) November 5, 2021
Back at the front, Verstappen and Red Bull is very much the partnership to beat heading into Saturday.
But Mercedes does look strong enough to at least limit the damage this weekend, as a result, the pressure could be more on Perez to ensure he’s keeping Hamilton at bay.
Full results from Practice 2 can be seen below:
