Leclerc crashes, Russell fastest in second practice dedicated to tyre testing

Charles Leclerc crashed out of second practice for the Mexican Grand Prix as George Russell went quickest in a session dedicated to tyre testing.

The Ferrari driver lost control at turn seven and crashed backwards into the barriers, causing heavy damage to the rear of his car. Russell was fastest at the end of the session, but times were largely irrelevant as the majority of running was dedicated to gaining data on Pirelli’s prototype 2023 tyre compounds.

Despite more cloud cover than the first hour of practice, circuit conditions remained comparable to the first session with temperatures again around 25 degrees. After handing over their cars for the first session, George Russell, Esteban Ocon, Yuki Tsunoda, Kevin Magnussen and Alexander Albon all took back their cars for second practice.

As with the previous round atr Circuit of the Americas last weekend, the second session of the day was extended by half an hour and dedicated to testing the softest prototype compounds designed by Pirelli for the 2023 season. Only the five drivers that missed the opening session were permitted to run their dry tyre allocation for the weekend. Russell used the soft tyres to set the early benchmark time of a 1’19.970 – quicker than Carlos Sainz Jnr’s best time of the earlier session – as Tsunoda and Ocon went second and third fastest, also on the softs.

After Pietro Fittipaldi being forced to stop Magnussen’s Haas on track with a suspected turbo problem in first practice, Magnussen was initially unable to take to the track as his mechanics continued to work on his car. He was eventually sent out onto the track with almost half an hour already expired on the prototype tyres, meaning he would not run any of his weekend’s tyre allocation in the session.

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As drivers carried out the runs assigned to them by Pirelli, some struggled for rear grip around the circuit. Sainz and Max Verstappen both made mistakes, while Yuki Tsunoda also had an oversteer moment entering the stadium section which saw him miss turn 14 entirely.

By far the biggest moment came for Ferrari’s Leclerc, who lost control of the rear of his car entering turn seven and spun, hitting the barriers backwards and destroying the rear of the car. The session was red-flagged and Leclerc safely climbed out of his car unharmed, but there was a 20-minute delay until practice resumed.

When it did, the 45-minute cut-off point for drivers who had missed the opening practice session had elapsed, meaning that for the remainder of the session, all drivers were obliged to run prototype Pirellis with DRS disabled. As a result, there were no further improvements in the times for the rest of the session.

In the final three minutes, Zhou Guanyu was told to pull his car off the circuit following a loss of hydraulic pressure in his Alfa Romeo. Zhou stopped off track in the stadium section, causing the red flags to come out for a second time and signalling the end of the session.

That left Russell on top of the times ahead of Tsunoda and Ocon, all three having set their best laps on softs earlier in the session. Lewis Hamilton was fourth and the quickest of the drivers who had been limited to the prototype tyres, ahead of the two Red Bulls of Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen, with the Ferraris of Leclerc and Sainz behind them.

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2022 Mexican Grand Prix second practice result

Position	Number	Driver	Team	Model	Time	Gap	Laps
1	63	George Russell	Mercedes	W13	1’19.970		32
2	22	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri-Red Bull	AT03	1’20.798	0.828	30
3	31	Esteban Ocon	Alpine-Renault	A522	1’21.177	1.207	31
4	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	W13	1’21.509	1.539	32
5	11	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	RB18	1’21.579	1.609	34
6	1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	RB18	1’21.588	1.618	34
7	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	F1-75	1’21.618	1.648	13
8	55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	F1-75	1’21.693	1.723	34
9	77	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	C42	1’21.993	2.023	36
10	10	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri-Red Bull	AT03	1’22.104	2.134	36
11	14	Fernando Alonso	Alpine-Renault	A522	1’22.337	2.367	31
12	5	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin-Mercedes	AMR22	1’22.371	2.401	32
13	23	Alexander Albon	Williams-Mercedes	FW44	1’22.447	2.477	24
14	4	Lando Norris	McLaren-Mercedes	MCL36	1’22.738	2.768	31
15	3	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren-Mercedes	MCL36	1’22.763	2.793	27
16	18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin-Mercedes	AMR22	1’22.840	2.870	23
17	47	Mick Schumacher	Haas-Ferrari	VF-22	1’22.879	2.909	31
18	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	VF-22	1’23.316	3.346	21
19	6	Nicholas Latifi	Williams-Mercedes	FW44	1’23.320	3.350	34
20	24	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	C42	1’23.369	3.399	34

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