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Alex Albon crashed out heavily after contact with Oliver Bearman, who was at the wheel of Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, is a session that was difficult to read.
Oscar Piastri was only sixth fastest after complaining about the handling of his McLaren while Max Verstappen hit issues with his Honda power unit.
Shwartzman was one of five ‘rookies’ in the session, together with Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton), Robert Shwartzman (Sauber, Zhou Guanyu), Felipe Drugovich (Aston Martin, Fernando Alonso), and Pato O’Ward (McLaren, Lando Norris).
The early running was completed on white-walled hard tyres as teams worked to clean up the dirty track surface.
That process was delayed by a red flag after just five minutes due to debris on the front straight, which Antonelli’s Mercedes ran over.
Damage to Verstappen’s Red Bull Racing suggested the offending detritus was from the Dutchman’s car or, more specifically, his floor.
There was a second stoppage when Albon and Bearman found the same piece of race track at Turn 10.
Albon had arrived on the Ferrari but appeared to lift on exit of Turn 9 after being surprised by Bearman, the back end of the Williams skidding out which, as he worked to collect it, swiped the Ferrari to end both their sessions.
The Williams did so in the barrier with significant damage, while its driver was whisked to the medical centre having climbed from his car unaided.
The resumption from that stoppage heralded the start of the important part of the session, with the leading teams bolting on fresh soft tyres for the final 20 minutes or so.
Preparation of the soft tyres appeared key; Carlos Sainz and Verstappen struggling for gains through the first sector over their hard tyre runs earlier suggesting a lack of front tyre temp.
Meanwhile, Russell went fastest with a 1:17.998s, more than 0.5s faster than anyone else, as the Mercedes clearly got its tyres in the window quickly.
Unhappy with his car, describing it as “pretty terrible” over the radio, Piastri was almost a second away from Russell’s pace.
McLaren had O’Ward in the other car and was looking at a new floor – starting the session with the older version before swapping onto the upgraded part midway through the session.
That left the Mexican without a truly representative time until the final 10 minutes or so, at which point he had a set of softs bolted on for a push lap resulting in a 1:19.295s.
Across the garage, Piastri had swapped back to hard tyres to focus on set-up once more.
During the soft tyre runs in the flurry after the red flag, Yuki Tsunoda has risen to third fastest.
The RB proved competitive in Mexico last year, when it was known as AlphaTauri, and there are a number of updates to that car this weekend.
Liam Lawson was 12th fastest, around half a second down on his team-mate but a lap good enough to leave him 12th on the timesheets.
Inside the final seven minutes, Verstappen complained of a lack of power from his Honda unit and forced an early end to his session as he toured back into pits where he climbed out.
The chequered flag waved soon after to bring an end to the hour.
Taking a read from the twice-interrupted hour was difficult; Russell showed strong pace for Mercedes in an encouraging start while Sainz in second suggests the Ferrari is somewhere near the pace too.
As for Red Bull Racing and McLaren, there looks to be work to do, though there are also viable explanations for their comparative lack of pace, though that is by no means a certainty.
Their ability to work on that in Free Practice 2 is limited, it is largely a Pirelli tyre test, though Lando Norris will have a small opportunity courtesy of some bonus running after sitting out Free Practice 1.
