Nico Rosberg finished the second free practice session at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on top for the Mercedes AMG PETRONAS team, but both Infiniti Red Bull Racing drivers finished ahead of newly crowned World Champion Lewis Hamilton.
In a reversal of the earlier session, the track began dry, but late rain saw drivers revert to the intermediate tyres, but the times tumbled from the opening practice as drivers familiarised themselves further with the Mexican Grand Prix circuit.
Morning pacesetter Max Verstappen had a less successful afternoon session, crashing on the entry to the final corner in the opening moments, bringing out the first of two red flags, with the Scuderia Toro Rosso unable to return to the track during the session.
The second red flag was caused when Romain Grosjean, running his first practice session of the day after allowing Jolyon Palmer to run in FP1, stopped his Lotus F1 Team car at the side of the road with a clutch problem.
Rosberg did not let the interruptions get to him as he set a time of 1m21.531s, with Daniil Kvyat second for Red Bull 0.245s back, while the Russian’s team-mate Daniel Ricciardo was third ahead of Hamilton, who suffered a small spin at turn four.
Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen placed fifth and sixth for Scuderia Ferrari, with Valtteri Bottas ending seventh for the Williams Martini Racing team despite a high speed spin at turn one that he was lucky to escape with just a damaged front wing.
The two McLaren-Honda drivers were an encouraging eighth and ninth in the session, with Fernando Alonso ahead of Jenson Button, with both drivers running with their eleventh engines of the season this weekend.
Felipe Massa completed the top ten for Williams, just ahead of Nico Hulkenberg in the leading Sahara Force India, while Pastor Maldonado was twelfth for Lotus.
Carlos Sainz Jr was the busiest driver during the session, running forty-one laps in his Toro Rosso, and ended thirteenth, ahead of the leading Sauber of Felipe Nasr and the second Force India of home hero Sergio Perez, while the stricken Grosjean was sixteenth.
Marcus Ericsson ended seventeenth in the second Sauber ahead of the two Manor F1 Team drivers, with Alexander Rossi ahead of Will Stevens, while Verstappen ended up without a time after his early crash.
Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez Free Practice 2 Times
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