Max Verstappen, Red Bull, Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, 2018

Verstappen leads another Red Bull one-two – then stops

2018 Mexican Grand Prix second practice

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Max Verstappen stayed on top in the second practice session but his progress was halted by a technical problem with 10 minutes to go.

The Red Bull driver led another one-two for the team while none of their rivals were able to get within 1.2 seconds of them.

They were led, unusually by Carlos Sainz Jnr’s Renault, as both Mercedes and Ferrari struggled to extract as much performance from the hyper-softs as Red Bull could. Sebastian Vettel fell short of third place by one-thousandth of a second in an eight-car cluster which was covered by just two-tenths of a second.

Nico Hulkenberg made it two Renaults in the top five. Brendon Hartley also surprised by putting his Toro Rosso ahead of world championship leader Lewis Hamilton in the first of the Mercedes.

Kimi Raikkonen, Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez rounded off the top 10. Esteban Ocon, taking part in his first practice session of the weekend, ended up three-tenths of a second off his team mate.

While the first four Renault cars appeared in the top five, the other two McLaren-Renaults languished in 15th (Stoffel Vandoorne) and 19th (Fernando Alonso).

As in first practice the hyper-soft tyres dropped off very rapidly. Several drivers were seen suffering from heavy degradation early into their race simulation stints in the second half of the 90-minute session.

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Pos.No.DriverCarBest lapGapLaps
133Max VerstappenRed Bull-TAG Heuer1’16.72021
23Daniel RicciardoRed Bull-TAG Heuer1’16.8730.15332
355Carlos Sainz JnrRenault1’17.9531.23335
45Sebastian VettelFerrari1’17.9541.23442
527Nico HulkenbergRenault1’18.0461.32636
628Brendon HartleyToro Rosso-Honda1’18.0611.34135
744Lewis HamiltonMercedes1’18.1001.38040
87Kimi RaikkonenFerrari1’18.1331.41342
977Valtteri BottasMercedes1’18.1401.42040
1011Sergio PerezForce India-Mercedes1’18.1671.44724
1131Esteban OconForce India-Mercedes1’18.4851.76524
128Romain GrosjeanHaas-Ferrari1’18.7332.01339
1316Charles LeclercSauber-Ferrari1’19.0242.30439
1410Pierre GaslyToro Rosso-Honda1’19.0472.32736
152Stoffel VandoorneMcLaren-Renault1’19.0962.37630
1618Lance StrollWilliams-Mercedes1’19.2192.49925
179Marcus EricssonSauber-Ferrari1’19.3222.60241
1835Sergey SirotkinWilliams-Mercedes1’19.3352.61537
1914Fernando AlonsoMcLaren-Renault1’19.5432.82331
2020Kevin MagnussenHaas-Ferrari1’19.6702.95035

Second practice visual gaps

Max Verstappen – 1’16.720

+0.153 Daniel Ricciardo – 1’16.873

+1.233 Carlos Sainz Jnr – 1’17.953

+1.234 Sebastian Vettel – 1’17.954

+1.326 Nico Hulkenberg – 1’18.046

+1.341 Brendon Hartley – 1’18.061

+1.380 Lewis Hamilton – 1’18.100

+1.413 Kimi Raikkonen – 1’18.133

+1.420 Valtteri Bottas – 1’18.140

+1.447 Sergio Perez – 1’18.167

+1.765 Esteban Ocon – 1’18.485

+2.013 Romain Grosjean – 1’18.733

+2.304 Charles Leclerc – 1’19.024

+2.327 Pierre Gasly – 1’19.047

+2.376 Stoffel Vandoorne – 1’19.096

+2.499 Lance Stroll – 1’19.219

+2.602 Marcus Ericsson – 1’19.322

+2.615 Sergey Sirotkin – 1’19.335

+2.823 Fernando Alonso – 1’19.543

+2.950 Kevin Magnussen – 1’19.670

Drivers more then ten seconds off the pace omitted.

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2018 Mexican Grand Prix

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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31 comments on “Verstappen leads another Red Bull one-two – then stops”

  1. tyres, tyres, tyres, tyres, tyres.

    i’m so sick of this s…!

    1. The tyres could make this a very interesting race, but mainly I agree.
      We shouldn’t need races to be made interesting due to crazy tyres.
      They should be a contributing factor of course but not to the point where drivers have to avoid racing each other in order to save them or can’t use the tyre best suited to the car/race because of pointless rules.

    2. I guess that people who don’t appreciate the importance of tyres in motorsports never grew beyond slot car racing.

      1. The problem is it’s not really a fair competition is it? Lucking into finding the right tyre window isn’t really a skill in this context.

      2. If you have never raced slot cars you will never know how important tire selection and preparation was for slotcars. From soft foamies for slick tracks to hard rubbers for rougher tracks and long distance races.

        In slot car racing one can “pickle” the tires in various compounds to increase traction.

        I would think the “black art” of tire preparation is much greater in slot cars than F1.

        Worth a read

        https://www.slotforum.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=107169&page=2

        1. @Gerrit Way to go. Been a slot car fanatic my whole life.

      3. HansieSlim (@)
        26th October 2018, 22:20

        The issue is that the tires generally prevent drivers from pushing all out most of the times (not to mention the silly limitation on fuel consumption) and completely ruins the competitiveness of person who lock up or who either overheated or underheated their set on a flying lap or who pushed too hard on a set which causes it to fall of the cliff so to speak.

        F1 is a sport and sport is based entirely on the idea of competition. The tires generally prevent competition and I for one hate the idea of drivers not pushing all out. It is like giving athletes shoes that are temperamental. If they do something that the shoes do not like then they will have to run at 65% of their abilities as opposed to 100% which is what supports come to see. The same applies for the limitation on fuel consumption.

      4. I have been watching since the mid 1970’s. Yes, tyres have always been relevant to a certain extent, but never anything like as much as in recent years.

        It’s completely ridiculous, as is fuel saving. Actually, it is hard to believe that this is even the same sport I grew up with. As we saw last week, from time to time we get a really good race, but honestly, I sometimes wonder if the regulations are written to try to make it as bad as possible.

        1. @paulguitar, is the fuel saving “ridiculous” compared to the past, or is it really more a case of it just being more transparent now that we know what the teams are telling the drivers, whereas in the past we would have been oblivious to what was happening?

          After all, in the early 1980s, before the combination of the ban on refuelling and the 220 litre tank restriction kicked in back in 1984, teams were using closer to 300 litres of fuel per race – it’s fairly obvious that, if the teams then have to use those same engines to complete a race distance with less than 75% of the fuel they could use in the past, there was some fairly heavy fuel saving going on during those races.

          At the time, there were those who did make exactly that point back in the 1980s – Jenkinson once commented in one article in 1986 that, having been given access to the radio channels during one race, it showed how oblivious the public were to quite how heavily the teams were managing their fuel usage during the races.

          Equally, it is worth noting that the 1970s – the era that you began watching – was an era which some broadcasters of the time through wasn’t particularly interesting. There was, after all, a quite famous rejection letter from ITV at the time where the head of ITV, to summarise, said that they had no interest in broadcasting F1 because the races were too predictable and boring.

          It seems that, when you look at what was being said at the time, the complaint that “from time to time we get a really good race and the majority are rubbish” seems to have been more of a normal state of affairs for quite a few decades – though, over time, the boring races are forgotten and our memories become biased towards the few stand out races, giving people a false impression that every race was like than when, in reality, they weren’t.

          1. Very good comment, anon

          2. every now and then, but rarely, I find comments worth reading…..this one is one of those.

          3. I on the other hand say the rot was already setting-in in the 70’s, ah for the 60’s again. Just add safety.

          4. @anon

            Some fair points there. I remember well the fuel saving of the previous turbo generation, and I thought it was ridiculous then as well. I remember very well Keke Rosberg telling Nigel Roebuck how embarrassing it was as a driver to have to tool around miles off the pace to save some petrol, all of the time longing to be able to yell at the spectators ‘I am not this slow, you know!’.

            I also agree that many races in the past were dull. What we need to do though, is to improve things, and to my mind driving around 7 seconds off the pace to save tyres and petrol is a long way from what I want to see the best drivers on the planet doing on a Sunday.

          5. Duncan Snowden
            27th October 2018, 14:48

            Great comment. I’ve been saying much the same for years (along with the fact that I can’t recall a time when someone wasn’t complaining that F1 was boring… for a while, 15-20 years ago, it was me). Interestingly, I was watching an old race a few weeks ago – it may have been the famous 1966 Adelaide GP when Mansell had his spectacular blowout – and right in the middle of it, James Hunt piped up with, “Of course, he’ll be saving fuel pretty heavily now…”.

      5. @coldfly i appreciate the importance, i just think that there playing far too big a role recently & suffering from far too many issues such as graining/blistering far too frequently.

        watching a weekend and race where all the talk is constantly about tyres with tyres falling off a cliff after 5-8 laps with massive performance differences that don’t allow for proper competitive racing simply is not what i wish to be watching.

        look at last weekend where we had 3 drivers in 3 cars of similar performance, the end to that race was great. if the tyres had been more fragile as they seem this weekend we wouldn’t have seen this as someone’s tyres would have fell off a cliff, they would have suddenly been several seconds slower & other cars would have easily breezed by them which wouldn’t have been fun to watch just like the easier drs highway passes are zero fun to watch.

        i want to see a good competitive on track battle and whenever the tyres are this fragile and play this huge a role we never get that.

  2. Since the top teams don’t seem to have the luxury of qualifying on US tyres, I feel like we’re in for some Singapore-style conservation driving and a rather “dull” race. Considering that the US tyres are a step softer, I don’t think that there was a need to introduce HS tyres.

  3. Simply simply lovely.

    Max for the win. Lewis vs Vet for the podium. 2 Renault in the Top 5. Could be the most exciting race of the season.

  4. That graphic showing visual time differences. Red Bull were on their own planet today! Especially with such a short, quick lap. Hard to see anyone touching them this weekend. Now just to hope for reliability…

    I don’t mind seeing Renault looking competitive and as a kiwi, I really hope Brendon can keep the momentum through the weekend. I would love to see him keep his seat. He’s clearly improved in the second half of the season but am also realistic that it simply may not be enough – F1 is a harsh mistress.. I suspect that he is doing so well as downforce levels in Mexico are more akin to WEC cars and he feels much more at home without the grip.

    1. @antznz, I am not sure what you mean by the comment “downforce levels in Mexico are more akin to WEC cars”. Generally, the situation is in fact the reverse – WEC LMP1 cars are generally reckoned to produce more downforce than F1 cars, mainly because the cars have substantially larger floors with which to work with.

      1. Interesting comment. I went to have a look to see if I could find any information to support this and couldn’t find anything other than Webber saying that F1 cars generated a lot more downforce. Would be interested in any links that you might have.

    2. Check monaco practice, qualifying and race: red bull should be strong, yes, but don’t rule ferrari and mercedes out, they’ll come back strong by qualifying, and if red bull snatches pole it’ll be already a lot.

      Then if they do that, indeed hope for reliability cause if there’s a thing for certain is their race pace is much better than qualifying one.

  5. Crikey. Few things would be more funny than Ric taking pole tomorrow. After a whole season of being outscored and with a move to Renault on the horizon, you can bet he’d love nothing more than to deny Verstappen a record breaking pole. Wouldn’t bet against it either.

    1. Hahahahah.. oranges spreading lies about RIC-VER seem to be working like a broken record. Funny also to see how oranges started to hate on Renault (even more so) after it became clear RB chose Honda. I’m sure that if Max would ever drive with a REN again, and win, REN would be all fine again. It was this same orange-hahostolze who was spreading lies about RENs reliability just a couple of days ago, claiming Hulks 5 retirements were all bc of the engine, while in reality it were only two.
      And now this talkin’ about RIC “After a whole season of being outscored..” Yeah right, keep on telling yourselves that, maybe one day you’ll convince yourselves. RIC has led VER for about 70% of this season so far. Only after Spa, after the summerbreak, about 4 weeks after RIC told RB he’d be leaving them, where he got 3rd and RIC retired, did VER get ahead of his teammate, by 2 points no less. And VER only needed 5 out-of-RICs-control-retirements of his teammate to do this plus another out-of-his-own-control broken front wing in France (where RIC was faster than VER before the breaking happened) and another out-of-his-control-caught-out-in-qualifying in Hungary, while VER himself only had two or three technical DNFs.
      Also, RIC got his two wins with all of the six F1-A-cars running. Max got his one win with only two others running.

      See, you can keep on creating your own little orange safe place, and try to implant that idea in others, but your propaganda won’t succeed.

      And something tells me hahostolze wouldn’t find it funny at all if RIC would be taking pole. He would be gutted for sure.

      1. @krxx Your comments -in my humble opinion- are getting more and more erratic. Max is faster than Dan. Proclaiming this is just an orange fantasy is not helping your credibility. Neither is insulting his fans or his compatriots. It’s just making you look like a troll.

        1. Verstappen is faster than ricciardo, ok, however it’s undeniable that after he signed with renault his reliability got a lot worse, and that based on verstappen’s mistakes in the first part of the season, with even reliability there’d be a lot of competition for 5th place in the driver’s title.

          Just like ricciardo for the first part of 2017 was much luckier than verstappen, now the same happened and this HEAVILY impacts the points standings.

      2. KRXXXX
        Being a Ricciardo fan is a nice thing, he’s a nice block, though hardly every seen someone vision being so blurred due to cropped up emotions, I almost feel for you.
        1. Renault has been the weakest factor for RBR since 2014, last season it alredy came up to a boiling point.
        2. Renault’s problems aren’t limited to RBR, Hulkenberg used as many components as Ric did
        3. Ver has been outperforming Ric from race one on, though he made some mistakes he still is the driver in front over 80% of all laps.
        4. Ver wasn’t the only driver at RBR making mistakes, Spain was rubbish by Dan, so was the Austrian GP
        5. Ric did 2 good races against Ver 8, Ver did 2 bad races against Ric underpreforming in near every other race
        6. Ric DNF’s where all behind Ver… except for the US, where Ver gained over 0.7 sec/lap
        7. During Max win he beat Ferrari’s and Mercedes driver before they DNF-ed

        1. Matn, you really got some mental issues, haven’t you? I’ve said time and again I’m not a DR-fan, I’m not a fan of anybody. And likewise, (bc of it) I also don’t have any (cropped up) emotions towards any driver, unlike you oranges. Yet you keep on referring to me as if I’m a DR-fan (just like a couple others of the oranges, like robbie) and the only reason you’re doing this, is to taint my reputation as a stater of reality, trying to make a FBoy out of me, like I have stated you all to be. Only difference is that I proved you guys are making up facts, while you guys never made it a vice versa thing.

          As for your points:
          1. Whats does this have to do with my comment?
          2. Hulk has had 2 DNFs bc of the engine (or any technical issue for that matter), the other three were bc of accidents. DR has had 5 technical DNFs plus several technical issues in quali. But I see you’re mixing up some stuff here. I mean what are you getting at? They both got REN-engine. Hulk was mentioned in my comment bc of the lies hahostolze is spreading, standard orange-MO, while RICs technical issues were mentioned bc of the comparison between him and Max. But I suspect this was just an attempt of you to have a dig at REN and DR at the same time, like you lot are used to.
          3. That’s just an ill-founded orange glassed comment, and ill-founded comment is just a nicer way to describe a lie. Tell me how someone, DR in this case, would be able to spend more laps in front if he had that much problems, out of his control, in qualifying. Not even Prost or Senna would’ve been able to overcome that kind of deficit. Tell me how many points did VER exactly get for those leading laps, or any other single driver. Tell me why in equal-chances-races, DR has won China, overtaking Max in the process and has led every single lap, while nurturing a crippled car, in Monaco, which is still regarded by insiders as the most difficult race. And tell me why should we exclude those mistakes of Max every time he makes them, like you oranges always seem to do. I can go on and on with raising legitimate questions and evidence why DR has beaten Max more often than not this season (and indeed every season), but I’ll stop it right here. BTW, bc it’s coming from you, I doubt that 80% figure you mentioned is correct. Not that it woiuld change anything in this argument.
          4. Again, you only see in my comments (and other manifestations of reality) what you want to see. Where exactly did you see me saying DR is a flawless driver? And where did you see me claim DR beats Max every time? Over a whole season though, he has beaten him every single time.
          Funny though that you only came up with these two specific examples, bc in 50% of them, namely Spain, Max got away with yet another silly mistake ramming Stroll from behind at the VSC-restart and losing part of his front wing. Lucky bc it could have been just as well a terminal issue or at least requiring a pit stop. Lucky also he didn’t get blackflagged or something bc he kept on driving, spreading all kinds of debris on the racing line and several guys went over it, (unknowingly) risking damage. But in terms of pace and mistakes of RIC, yeah Max was a bit faster in the first stint. After their first and only pitstop they were equally fast, but RIC spun during the VSC-restart. He finished with setting the FL a couple of times. Austria they were equally fast before their pitstop, but RIC was struggling with his tyres real soon after, blistering them. So yeah, Max was faster in Austria too.
          5. VER did 0 good races against RIC 1000, RIC did 0 bad races; VER underpreforming in every single race. Hahahhahhhahahah, how’s that for a fact.
          6. VER DNF’s were all behind RIC… except for the Austria, where RIC gained over 10 sec/lap. Hahahahahahaah, how’s that for a fact part II.
          7. Nice try, keep those orange lies coming. Bottas was leading VER before he retired. Max furthermore profited from the VSC that came out bc of that very same BOTs retirement. HAM who was leading VER by 5s, didn’t came into the pits. So RB beat MER on strategy.
          So VER won bc of the mistake(s) of Kimi in the first lap plus the retirement of BOT plus the wrong strategy of MER. Wrong but understandable strategy, bc they were the only ones out there with just one car and could be subject to blocking tactics of the other two topteams. And add to this all, VER also won bc VET had a grid penalty.
          And speaking of that VSC. Was it really necessary to deploy it in the first place, and also perhaps right after HAM had passed the pits? Bottas parked his car well away from the track limits. I wouldn’t be surprised the decision was influenced by the fact it was the home GP/track of RB.

          So Matn and other oranges, keep on trying with those lies, hahahahahhhhahahhahaa.
          And Racefan, is that all you can come up with, hahahahah. Like I repeatedly said, I dare you and all the other orange-FBoys to find any statement which I present as a fact, to be false. Any, so that means if you could give me only one you’d have done your part of the dare. And as you know, I’ve made quite a lot the past couple of months. So it shouldn’t be that hard for you, having branded me as fact free, right? Hahahahahahaha.
          The question is, can you say Ziggoooooooooooooooooooooo? Ahahahahahhahahahhaahahah.

      3. Mister fact free hate is at it again. It does however originate in some personal problem – for which i am sorry.

        1. I was not surprised when DR said that he was 100% confident that if he were to win in Mexico the team would be happier for him than for Max if he were to win, as they have all shared in his unreliability woes this season, and would love to see him win one before he leaves for Renault.

  6. Well judging by the weather forecast it looks like solid rain all day which will make and interesting qualifying and a green circuit tomorrow! However may make the race a bit dull if everyone starts in SS

  7. Four Renault engine cars were in top 5 but McLaren was nowhere. Alonso was right for asking to stop the session. His team doesn’t even bother to compete anymore this year.

    If McLaren really ditched 2018 and going to concentrate for 2019, please don’t put Alonso and Vandoorne like this, just sign Kubica or someone else to drive for the remaining races.

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