Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen went quickest in the second practice session for the 2025 FIA Formula 1 Mexico City Grand Prix, beating Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Mercedes Kimi Antonelli, as title rival McLaren pair Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri finished fourth and 12th respectively. 

At the start of the session, Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli was one of the first on track but the Italian appeared to have an issue as was told to limp him to the pit lane. The problem was soon rectified, however, and when he emerged again, he posted a time of 1:19.444 to get things underway. 

FP1’s fastest man then moved to the top of the order with a lap of 1:18.669 set on Medium tyres. That put him 0.012s ahead of Lando Norris who was back in the car after handing his car to Pato O’Ward for FP1. The Briton was, however, complaining of misfires on his car. 

Leclerc then lowered the benchmark to 1:18.353, going 0.328s clear of Norris who had a brief off-track moment at Turn 11.

Behind the top two Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, who had been replaced by Antonio Fuoco in FP1, slotted into third place, while Max Verstappen, who had given his car to Arvid Lindblad in the opening session was fourth, ahead of championship leader Oscar Piastri. 

Williams’ Alex Albon and Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll then made the switch to Soft tyres signalling the start of the qualifying simulations.

Albon leapt up to seventh on the timesheet with his Soft tyres run but Leclerc was also out on Softs and the Monegasque racer posted a lap of 1:17.545 to consolidate his position at the top of the timesheet. Norris and Piastri attempted to challenge the Ferrari driver’s time but the former made a mistake and Sector 2 and the latter’s final sector was poor and both ended their laps more than six tenths off P1. 

Verstappen, however, was making no mistakes and the winner of last weekend’s US Grand Prix vaulted to the top of the order with a lap of 1:17.392 that put him 0.153s ahead of Leclerc. Norris went again and crossed the line 0.251s off Verstappen but he was beaten to P3 on the timesheet by Antonelli who popped in a lap of 1:17.566 to steal P3. 

Fifth place went to Hamilton who finished just under five hundredths of a second off Norris, while Mercedes’ George Russell was sixth ahead Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda. Fernando Alonso was eight​h for Aston Martin and he was separated from 10th-placed team-mate Lance Stroll by Williams driver Carlos Sainz. 

While Norris managed to recover from his scrappy first run on Softs to take P4, Piastri did not put in a second run and he finished in P12 behind Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson. 

Once the qualifying sims were complete the field moved to longer runs. With Pirelli gapping the compounds this weekend, providing the C2 as the Hard and the C4 and C5 as the Medium and Soft drivers either focused on seeing how far the C5 might go over a longer stint or explored the performance of the C4 Medium as teams evaluated the possibility of avoiding the more durable but slower C2 for Sunday’s race. 

2025 FIA Formula 1 Mexico City Grand Prix – Free Practice 2
1 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Honda RBPT 1:17.392 34 200.206
2 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:17.545 0.153 32 199.811
3 Kimi Antonelli Mercedes 1:17.566 0.174 27 199.757
4 Lando Norris McLaren/Mercedes 1:17.643 0.251 31 199.559
5 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari 1:17.692 0.300 30 199.433
6 George Russell Mercedes 1:17.829 0.437 33 199.082
7 Yuki Tsunoda Red Bull/Honda RBPT 1:17.883 0.491 31 198.944
8 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin/Mercedes 1:17.938 0.546 29 198.804
9 Carlos Sainz Williams/Mercedes 1:17.939 0.547 34 198.801
10 Lance Stroll Aston Martin/Mercedes 1:17.954 0.562 30 198.763
11 Liam Lawson Racing Bulls/Honda RBPT 1:18.218 0.826 32 198.092
12 Oscar Piastri McLaren/Mercedes 1:18.232 0.840 31 198.057
13 Esteban Ocon Haas/Ferrari 1:18.266 0.874 31 197.971
14 Isack Hadjar Racing Bulls/Honda RBPT 1:18.281 0.889 30 197.933
15 Gabriel Bortoleto Sauber/Ferrari 1:18.323 0.931 30 197.826
16 Nico Hülkenberg Sauber/Ferrari 1:18.348 0.956 29 197.763
17 Oliver Bearman Haas/Ferrari 1:18.442 1.050 34 197.526
18 Franco Colapinto Alpine/Renault 1:18.721 1.329 31 196.826
19 Alexander Albon Williams/Mercedes 1:18.855 1.463 31 196.492
20 Pierre Gasly Alpine/Renault 1:19.194 1.802 30 195.651