Formula 1 title contender Max Verstappen laid down an ominous marker in second practice for the Mexican Grand Prix, a session that championship leader Oscar Piastri ended outside the top 10.
Verstappen is the outsider in a three-way 2025 F1 title fight but his strong form since the season resumed in late-August means he heads into the final five races of the season 40 points behind Piastri, having won three of the last five races.
And armed with another floor upgrade to his Red Bull - one that the team is describing as a "make-from" update, from a pre-existing floor that it has recycled - Verstappen set the fastest time of the weekend so far, a 1m17.392s, to beat FP1 pacesetter Charles Leclerc by just over a tenth and a half.
Verstappen only bothered with one qualifying simulation lap, too - returning to the Red Bull garage soon after to prepare for a longer race-simulation run.
That was not as smooth, however, as the four-time F1 champion complained his Red Bull, adorned with flow-vis paint on its rear wing, felt "terrible".
"I have no grip," said Verstappen. "It's like driving on ice."
Behind Leclerc - who, as one of 11 regular drivers who took part in a rookie-heavy FP1 session, looked dialled-in early on in FP2 - was the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli, just 0.021s back.
Antonelli reported he'd lost drive and was seeing a "limp home" message shortly after the start of the session. Though he was able to continue, he did then return to the pits for a spell and therefore had a slightly truncated runplan on softs.
But his slightly later effort meant McLaren was fourth of the 'big four' teams at the end of Friday - on single-lap pace, at least.
Piastri and Lando Norris both underperformed on their first qualifying simulations and while Norris did make a significant step - he ended the session fourth fastest and a quarter of a second down on Verstappen - Piastri failed to improve and that consigned him to 12th in the headline times.
There was a word of caution, though - as the MCL39 looked stronger on long-run pace, albeit with Norris and Piastri (who again looked slower than his team-mate) completing those race simulations on softs tyres while the majority of others ran mediums.
The second Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton, second Mercedes of George Russell, and second Red Bull of Yuki Tsunoda came next up behind Norris.
Both Aston Martin drivers made the top 10, with Fernando Alonso (eighth) and Lance Stroll (10th) sandwiching Carlos Sainz's Williams.
Though Alex Albon was only 19th after clouting the wall exiting the final corner on a lap that otherwise looked like it would've had him in a similar position to his team-mate Sainz, the Aston Martin and Williams did appear to have a buffer back to the rest of the midfield contenders.
Results
1 Max Verstappen (Red Bull) 1m17.392s
2 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) +0.153s
3 Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) +0.174s
4 Lando Norris (McLaren) +0.251s
5 Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) +0.300s
6 George Russell (Mercedes) +0.437s
7 Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull) +0.491s
8 Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) +0.546s
9 Carlos Sainz (Williams) +0.547s
10 Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) +0.562s
11 Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) +0.826s
12 Oscar Piastri (McLaren) +0.840s
13 Esteban Ocon (Haas) +0.874s
14 Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) +0.889s
15 Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber) +0.931s
16 Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber) +0.956s
17 Ollie Bearman (Haas) +1.050s
18 Franco Colapinto (Alpine) +1.329s
19 Alex Albon (Williams) +1.463s
20 Pierre Gasly (Alpine) +1.802s
