The track was dry, but the conditions were demanding enough in themselves, because at the high altitude due to the night rain, the racers suffered from a lack of grip, especially on slippery edges. The first victim was Leclerc, which spun when braking in the first turn, but due to the sufficiently wide excursion zone on this part of the track, he took it away only with a destroyed set of tires. He was not so lucky Alex Albon, who drove too aggressively over the curb in the seventh turn and slipped into a protective rubber fence. The training was over for him, to get to know the track on which he is racing for the first time, he will have to make the best use of Saturday's free practice. Red Bullquite a bit of work awaits these mechanics. “It’s a shame he lost so much time. Everyone makes mistakes, you have to come to terms with that, ”was the first response of his boss Christian Horner.
After the break, Williams and Alfa Romeo had already started testing a soft version of the tires, while Bottas learned how to poor grip is offered by the hardest version. Everything went according to the already known scenario - slipping of the rear wheels on the curb in the twelfth turn and turning. Fortunately, Sainz, who was driving behind him, managed to avoid him. In addition, we saw quite a few smaller trips off the trail, especially in the first turn where the bikes were blocked Giovinazzi, Hulkenberg and Kvyat.
After 37 minutes, the favored racers also started simulating fast laps on the softest tires. first both Ferraris. The fastest time was set by Leclerc first, and immediately afterwards it was improved by Vettel by almost half a second, which looks like this the hottest before tomorrow’s qualifiers. Later, the winner of the last two races in Mexico, Verstappen, came in between them, and again they were retained both Mercedes, Bottas in fourth and Hamilton with almost a second behind in fifth place. Both Toro Rossa, McLaren, and Renault and Racing Point are in the middle of the table. At the very end of the training session, Leclerc took care of some excitement by turning as many as 21 laps with a set of soft tires.
If the track will be dry tomorrow, then the favorite for the first starting line, according to what was shown in the second training session, is to be found mainly at Ferrari, which is due to high final speeds strong especially in the first sector, and the race is not to be written off either Red Bullbut, above all, not a Mercedes, which certainly hides another trump card up its sleeve.
