Saint fastest in Mexico FP2, Russell’s heavy crash, problems for Verstappen

But those tests at Mexico City’s Autobahn Hermanos Rodriguez were too tough for Mercedes’ George Russell and Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen. Russell lost control of the W15 and crashed heavily into the Turn 9 barriers, while the Dutchman did not set a single fast lap due to mechanical issues.

The English Mercedes driver appeared to overcut the curb on the inside of the previous turn 8, causing the floor of his Mercedes to touch the curb and disrupting its grip at the entrance to turn 9.

Thus, Russell lost control, and after the four-a-ké crashed with considerable force sideways into the barriers. The Englishman got out of the cockpit under his own power and was taken to the track’s medical center, where it was determined that he had not suffered any injuries.

His accident interrupted testing for about 25 minutes. Prior to this, the drivers had taken to the track on the 2025 prototype tyres. The first two times were initially set by Sergio Perez (RBR) and Lando Norris (McLaren) on the 2025 C5 prototype soft rubber.

However, shortly afterwards Carlos Sainz and Oscar Piastri moved into the top two positions of the years, using this year’s average tire of the Mexico race (C4). The Spaniard dropped his time further, to 1:17.809, and followed immediately after Russell’s accident.

After the nearly 25-minute stoppage to repair the barrier, Saint returned to the track on the original 2025 C4 rubber to set a time of 1:17.699 that was to go down as the fastest of these tests.

Then, in accordance with Pirelli’s schedule, the drivers committed to the fuel-heavy 10-lap sets, with each of the company’s three prototype tires for the new season.

Despite the fluctuations and different tyres, behind Saint, Piastri, RB’s Yuki Tsunoda and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc were separated by just 10 thousandths of a second – with Lando Norris following in half a tenth.

Leclerc, however, did not get on track before Russell’s crash as Scuderia mechanics repaired his car driven in FP1 by Oliver Berman, who was involved in Alex Albon’s crash.

So the Monegasque was given an extra fast lap, moving up to 4th on his second attempt on the 2025 prototype C4 tyre. Behind Norris, Haas’ Kevin Magnussen rounded out the top six, 40mm faster than Lewis Hamilton with the other Mercedes W15.

Max Verstappen wasn’t even able to set a fast lap – as was Alex Albon, as Williams mechanics were unable to repair the FW46 after the early testing accident.

The Dutchman took to the track to find that his engine problem from early testing had not been resolved. It was back to the pits and at Russell’s crash stop the RBR engineers tried to fix the problem – but couldn’t.

At the moment the Milton Keynes team has not given any further information. But if the Dutchman needs to change any part of the Honda power unit, he will receive a 5-place penalty at the start because he is already over the season limit.

Russell’s accident, finally, essentially minimized the 30 minutes available to drivers who didn’t take part in FP1 to use whatever rubber they wanted.

So Norris, Alonso, Hamilton, Leclerc and Chow, who had been replaced in the first tests by new drivers, lost the opportunity to work as much as they wanted on their settings with the medium tire (C4) that will be used for the rest of the two days.