Red Bull’s Max Verstappen shines in single lap but pace worries remain | F1 Mexico GP practice. Max Verstappen set the fastest time in FP2 at the Mexican Grand Prix.

Max Verstappen claimed the fastest lap in Free Practice 2 at the Mexican Grand Prix, but his performance appears to be just a fleeting highlight. Beyond the flying lap, the Red Bull RB21 struggles with grip everywhere and lacks the race pace required to challenge for victory, which is essential for closing the points gap to the two McLaren drivers.

Not everything that glitters is gold, and this could also be said about Max Verstappen’s top time in FP2. The four-time world champion, after handing his RB21 over to Arvid Lindblad in the first session, returned for the second session and immediately set the pace for everyone. However, according to his statements at the end of the day, today’s result could be one of the most ephemeral in recent years.

He performed well on a single flying lap, but when trying to string together a longer run, the RB21 did not respond positively. Verstappen’s car was sliding everywhere, which meant his race pace could not match the sharp and consistent pace of Lando Norris.

“On the Softs, I managed to put in a good lap. Everything else went rather poorly. The run on Mediums was not great, and the biggest problem is the long runs, where we seem to struggle a lot. This, of course, is the main concern ahead of the race,” said Verstappen.

“The balance wasn’t there, and there was no grip. That is the biggest worry. As soon as you try to do a sustainable stint, the tires overheat. We’re all over the place. It was tough, but we’ll see.”

“Clearly, this is not a way to win a race. You can be fast on a flying lap, but if your race pace is terrible, things become difficult. I’d rather be fast in the race than just in qualifying,” the Red Bull driver added.

Supporting Max Verstappen’s assessment, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko commented: “We are competitive on a single lap, but the long run was not good, especially on Medium tires. Clearly, we are behind McLaren. On Softs, we are a bit closer, but we are not there yet. There is a lot of work to do.”

“All the problems we saw today come from balance and grip issues. It has nothing to do with temperatures. Max was clearly behind Norris. There are obvious problems, but it’s only Friday. We may still recover. We need to stay focused on ourselves to solve these issues,” Helmut Marko concluded at the end of Friday practice in Mexico City