Max Verstappen comfortably finished on top of the time charts in second free practice at the 2021 Mexican Grand Prix at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez circuit in Mexico City. Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton finished in second position and third positions at the end of the second free practice session.
The sixty-minute long second free practice session started under dry conditions with air temperatures at 21 degrees C and track temperatures at 41 degrees C.
The Pirelli tyre choice at this race is the white-striped hard compound tyres (C2), yellow-striped medium compound tyres (C3), and red-striped soft compound tyres (C4).
It will be Yuki Tsunoda and Lance Stroll’s turn to take on a new power unit and start the race from the back of the grid. Lewis Hamilton has escaped with a reprimand for incorrectly rejoining the track in the morning practice session.
All the drivers went out on the track as soon as the session started. Verstappen is the early leader on the medium compound tyres with a lap time of 1m18.818s.
Verstappen was flying and was the first driver to dip into the 1 minute17 seconds with a lap time of 1m17.920s.
Bottas slotted into second position on the time charts on his first run on the soft compound tyres. Verstappen then comfortably extended his lead at the top to over 0.5 seconds over the Mercedes drivers.
Daniel Ricciardo and George Russell hit trouble with gearbox issues during the session.
With twenty minutes to go, the teams started their race simulations with long runs. Verstappen had a slight edge over the Mercedes drivers in long run pace.
Verstappen showed the true pace in the afternoon session with Sergio Pérez in good form in fourth position. Bottas and Hamilton have a lot of work to do to close the gap to Verstappen as they had to be content with second and third positions.
Carlos Sainz was “best of the rest” in fifth position. Pierre Gasly was in sixth position ahead of Charles Leclerc.
Yuki Tsunoda, Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso rounded off the top ten positions.
The McLaren F1 team had their customary low-key Friday with Lando Norris in twelfth position splitting the Alfa Romeo Racing drivers. Ricciardo’s session was curtailed due to reliability issues.
The session ended with Red Bull Racing on top with a clear edge over Mercedes at the end of Friday.
2021 Mexican GP FP2 Results:
| Pos | No | Driver | Nat. | Teams | Time | Gap | Laps |
| 1 | 33 | Max Verstappen | NED | Red Bull Racing | 1:17.301 | 28 | |
| 2 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | FIN | Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team | 1:17.725 | +0.424s | 31 |
| 3 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | GBR | Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team | 1:17.810 | +0.509s | 26 |
| 4 | 11 | Sergio Perez | MEX | Red Bull Racing | 1:17.871 | +0.570s | 26 |
| 5 | 55 | Carlos Sainz | ESP | Scuderia Ferrari | 1:18.318 | +1.017s | 29 |
| 6 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | FRA | Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda | 1:18.429 | +1.128s | 29 |
| 7 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | MON | Scuderia Ferrari | 1:18.605 | +1.304s | 28 |
| 8 | 22 | Yuki Tsunoda | JAP | Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda | 1:18.644 | +1.343s | 31 |
| 9 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | GER | Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team | 1:18.681 | +1.380s | 32 |
| 10 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | ESP | Alpine F1 Team | 1:18.732 | +1.431s | 27 |
| 11 | 7 | Kimi Räikkönen | FIN | Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN | 1:18.841 | +1.540s | 25 |
| 12 | 4 | Lando Norris | GBR | McLaren F1 Team | 1:18.979 | +1.678s | 27 |
| 13 | 99 | Antonio Giovinazzi | ITA | Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN | 1:19.227 | +1.926s | 31 |
| 14 | 31 | Esteban Ocon | FRA | Alpine F1 Team | 1:19.431 | +2.130s | 37 |
| 15 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | AUS | McLaren F1 Team | 1:19.521 | +2.220s | 7 |
| 16 | 47 | Mick Schumacher | GER | Uralkali Haas F1 Team | 1:19.620 | +2.319s | 30 |
| 17 | 18 | Lance Stroll | CAN | Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team | 1:19.730 | +2.429s | 36 |
| 18 | 6 | Nicholas Latifi | CAN | Williams Racing | 1:20.820 | +3.519s | 17 |
| 19 | 9 | Nikita Mazepin | RAF | Uralkali Haas F1 Team | 1:21.581 | +4.280s | 28 |
| 20 | 63 | George Russell | GBR | Williams Racing | 2 |