‘One thing after another’ – Russell left frustrated by second big crash in a week as he spins off in Mexico City

A dejected George Russell said it is “one thing after another at the moment” for himself and Mercedes after a high-speed crash brought his Friday running at the Mexico City Grand Prix to a premature conclusion.

Russell led the way during first practice at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez but lost control of his Mercedes W15 through the Turn 8/9 curves early in second practice.

READ MORE: Sainz sets the pace as Russell crash disrupts practice session extended for Pirelli tyre testing in Mexico

Russell suffered a sizeable impact with the barriers but was able to walk away unaided from the wreckage, and returned to Mercedes’ hospitality unit after a precautionary visit to the medical centre. It marked Russell’s second hefty crash in the space of six days, following on from his accident during the final part of qualifying at last weekend’s United States Grand Prix.

“I’m okay, definitely felt a bit winded after that one,” Russell said. “Honestly, I don’t know what happened. Just the car started bouncing on the ground and before I even had a chance to catch it, I was already spinning.

“It seems like it’s one thing after another at the moment. It’s frustrating. FP1 we were very strong, very fast. Tried to take the same line, cutting that corner and for whatever reason on this occasion in FP2 the thing just started going on me.”

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Lewis Hamilton sat out first practice while Mercedes handed its 2025 signing, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, his second outing of the season - fulfilling their obligation to run a young driver across two sessions in 2024.

Hamilton returned for the extended 90-minute second FP2 session – which was dedicated to trialling Pirelli’s prototype 2025 rubber – and finished in seventh spot.

“It’s a tyre test so we couldn’t change anything on the car – it was the same from the beginning to the end,” said Hamilton. “I know what we need to fix, whether or not we can actually do that we’ll see. But it didn’t feel terrible, a little bit off the front guys, so we’ve got some work to do tonight.”

On where he wants improvements on the W15 Hamilton replied: “Just rear end, you always want more rear.”

Antonelli carried out duties in first practice and was buoyed by his progress, having crashed out of his debut practice session at Monza last month.

WATCH: Albon and Bearman collide to bring out the red flags during FP1 in Mexico City

“Yeah, definitely much better than Monza,” Antonelli said. “I drove much calmer today, I didn’t want to take any risks, I just wanted to do a clean session to get some laps, understand the car and understand the tyres a bit more, overall it was pretty decent. I could feel I wasn’t on the limit but just because it was my choice, I just wanted to get a clean session overall.”