Mexico – Free Practice 2: Vettel finds the rhythm, Gasly impresses

The two Alfas open the ball for these FP2 on medium tires. At Williams, Kubica is in charge of testing the new front wing in the Alfa/Ferrari style. George Russell will take part in this session a little later, as the mechanics are working on his suspension at the last moment.

The risk of rain is ultimately quite low. The session will be studious and dedicated to performance research for the race, as well as studying the behavior of the tires.

The long relay test is conducted fairly quickly at Alfa Romeo with a switch to hard tires. Räikkönen experiences a light and inconsequential wheel lock-up.

After 8 minutes Red Bull and Ferrari go out on medium tires. Leclerc tests the limits and catches a nice slide of the rear end.

He sets a 1:18.183 after 11 minutes of the session, relegating Vettel to 5 tenths behind. The German immediately responds with a 1:17.960.

Many of them lock their wheels at the first corner. Leclerc will even perform a spin.

After a quarter of an hour, only Russell, Hamilton, and Hülkenberg have not yet set a time. It is at this moment that the session is suspended by a red flag following Albon’s crash. He began braking on the curb, which pushed him off the track. The impact is not violent, but the car will not be able to continue for the rest of the session. The front right suspension is torn off.

At 9:29 PM, the session resumes, with Sainz ahead of the two Mercedes getting ready to exit the pit lane as quickly as possible.

Vettel did not come out. We regularly saw him lock his two front wheels. He went to have his seat adjusted; did he feel uncomfortable sitting?

After half an hour, he remains at the top of the timesheets.

Bottas tests the hard tires and spins at the entry to the stadium. At the same time, Sainz goes straight on at the first corner. Everyone is testing the grip limits of this track. There seems to be quite a bit of water at the bottom of the curbs. That’s what would have caused Albon’s error.

After 1 hour and 5 minutes of testing, Verstappen joins Vettel at the top of the standings with a time identical to the German’s. Pierre Gasly feels his wings growing and moves up to 3rd, 4 hundredths behind his former teammate.

Hamilton is already less than two-tenths of a second behind Vettel and positions himself ahead of Leclerc.

He has just switched to red (soft) tires and immediately sets the best sector times and even the fastest lap with a 1:17.072. The car’s behavior is transformed. Vettel also went back out to attack the timing with these tires and is already improving on Leclerc’s intermediates, by 4 tenths for a lap time of 1:16.607. The best time of FP1 has just been beaten.

There are still 2 seconds to find to beat the track record. Vettel goes for a second fast lap to check if the soft tires are competitive over time.

Despite the red tires, Ricciardo remains 1.773 seconds behind the Ferraris.

All the other drivers follow suit and switch to soft tires. The lap times improve for everyone, yet the hierarchy remains the same.

And as with the other two types of tires, the degradation is rapid.

40 minutes remain and Perez makes a nice maneuver to keep his car on track. He narrowly avoids a crash in front of his crowd who came in large numbers to support him.

Verstappen manages to position himself between the Ferraris, 1 tenth behind Vettel. The Mercedes seem to be having some trouble finding the right performance, with Bottas and Hamilton nearly a second behind, in 4th and 5th. It appears they are focusing more on the race than the qualifying. This is evident from the tire wear. The Mercedes cars, particularly Hamilton’s, return to the pits with tires in good condition.

The Toro Rossos are fighting in the top 10 and the Racing Points are not far behind.

The Alfa Romeos are marking time and are no longer improving, just like the Haases. The Williams, unfortunately, are bringing up the rear as usual this season.

At Haas, the performance of soft tires is complicated, showing blistering and graining. The car suffers from understeer and oversteer, quickly becoming undrivable.

For the past few minutes, all the teams have been testing the soft and medium compounds in long stints. Ferrari seems to have found race settings that limit the wear of the red tires.

At Red Bull, it is observed that the degradation is immediate. They can’t afford to choose the wrong strategy on Sunday or they risk losing a lot of time quickly.

There are 10 minutes left and the learning of the race pace continues. Mercedes fits hard tires. The Finn is still maintaining a very good pace.

At Ferrari, Vettel tests long stints with the soft tires and achieves the best lap times in race mode. Verstappen challenges him. And Gasly as well, he is on a very good pace with the same type of tires.

Leclerc, on the other hand, is testing the red tires and is having more difficulty, averaging 3 seconds behind his teammate. He will also have a big scare with a major spin in the same sequence of corners where Albon lost control at the beginning of the session.

There are 5 minutes left. The majority of drivers remain studious. Meanwhile, Vettel and Hamilton are putting on the soft tires to retest the track ahead of qualifying. Aborted attempts for both, the times will not be improved.

After this session, we note that the Ferraris, and especially Vettel, will be strong contenders on Saturday to take pole position. However, the outcome of the race remains open with many contenders for victory.

The degradation of the tires and understanding it will once again play a crucial role on Sunday. Not to mention the potential appearance of rain.

Results of Free Practice 2 of the 2019 Mexican Grand Prix