Vettel nips Hamilton in 2nd Mexican GP practice

Sebastian Vettel

While Mercedes is sandbagging, Sebastian Vettel gave Ferrari something to cheer out, at least for one day, by putting Ferrari at the top of the time sheets in Friday practice for the Mexican GP on supersoft tires.

Vettel's lap of 1m19.790s was enough to nip Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton by just 0.004s who put up a 1m19.794s also on supersoft tires.

Hamilton's Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg was third 0.435s in arrears and just ahead of the 2nd Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen.

Daniel Ricciardo rounded out the top-5 for Red Bull 0.6 sec behind Vettel.

The track improved for FP2 as it began to clean up and get rubbered-in, with warmer conditions. On the circuit named in honor of the Rodriguez brothers, Sebastian Vettel was fastest for Ferrari. As usual, track time was given over to qualifying and race simulation work. Seb did a 1.19.790 on his only run on Supersoft tires, having also done some long runs on the Medium. In the other SF16-H, Kimi Raikkonen posted a 1.20.259, good enough for fourth on the time sheet, who used the softest tire on offer for this event, as well as the Soft.

Splitting the two Ferraris in second and third places was the Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton (1.19.794) and Nico Rosberg (1.20.225).

QUOTES

Hamilton was right on Vettel's tail and is most likely sandbagging. Expect the Mercedes cars to bury the Ferraris in qualifying

Mercedes GP

Lewis Hamilton (2nd, 1:19.794): "It's great to be back here in Mexico. The support we've had here already is amazing – and it's only Friday! There's so much energy and enthusiasm for the sport here, which is great to see. It's been a solid day in terms of our program for the weekend. The cars are obviously faster but lap times are pretty strong already. The track is feeling better than it did last year and I feel a lot more comfortable in the car than I did the first time we came to this circuit, so hopefully I can carry that through the rest of the weekend."

Nico Rosberg (3rd, 1:20.225): "It was an unusual day out there with the low temperatures and a very green track. So, it's been a bit of a steep learning curve to understand what to do with the tires – how to get the best out of them for one lap and also for the long runs. We really learned a lot today and it's not been a bad start overall but we have a lot of homework to do tonight. The car was feeling okay on the medium tire but even there we need to make some progress to understand where we can find some performance. Ferrari seemed very quick here today, so they will be a big threat. Let's see how tomorrow goes. It feels great to be back in Mexico. The fans are outstanding here. Already on Friday it's really packed out there in the stands, which is awesome."

Paddy Lowe: "A good day's work. Very cold, which we weren't really prepared for, and a circuit that was dirty to start off with. But this all soon settled down and we ran a problem-free program, looking at the three different tire compounds and their performance for qualifying and the race as usual. We also did a lot more work than usual with engine and brake settings to tune the car to this high altitude. It was quite a complicated day from a data point of view and, comparing ourselves to the opposition, it looks very close between the top three teams as things stand. It's great to see such and large and energetic crowd – already on a Friday. We look forward to some good on-track battles and more of this brilliant atmosphere over the next two days."

Ferrari

Sebastian Vettel (1st, 1:19.790): "Overall it was a good day: the car seems to work, not only judging from the result but also as an overall feeling. The pace was there not only for one lap, but for all the laps we have completed. Also, we were always ahead of schedule leaving the garage, which is not always the case. For sure it is nice to be first in the time sheets, but this doesn't mean anything on Friday. If we are in the same position tomorrow afternoon, then we can be happy. Anyway, I felt that I was in Mexico city, not on the race track, with all the traffic! I think everybody was fighting with the same problems, trying to make the tires last, especially the Supersofts. I didn't have successive laps because I had so much traffic, but overall the pace was good, which is the most important thing. I think we can still improve for tomorrow and go from there."

Kimi Raikkonen (4th, 1:20.259): "Overall it was pretty ok today, but it's still early to know where we are and how's going to be. I had some understeer, mainly in the afternoon, with new tires on it was a bit tricky, but it's still the first day of practice. Now we have to concentrate and work on a few things as we normally do after the Friday's session and hopefully tomorrow, on new tires, we can push a bit more."

Williams-Mercedes

Valtteri Bottas (8th, 1:20.629): "I think it was a good day for us. We definitely still have a lot of work to do with the balance; the track was obviously improving a lot so the feeling of the car gets better and better with every single lap. The long runs seemed to be competitive with the supersoft and the medium, so hopefully we're looking at a good weekend ahead for us. We still need to make sure that we work hard tonight to make the changes we need to get more performance."

Felipe Massa (13th, 1:21.326): "It was very difficult to understand the tires today. The track is just very low grip, but it's improving every time we go out. You can go out and have no grip, but then suddenly at the end of the run the grip improves. So, I think understanding the tires this weekend will be very important for the result at the end of the race. I wasn't happy with the result on the new tires, but I was happy on the longer runs. We just need to work on understanding everything."

Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: "It's quite hard to read today because of the nature of this track, and with everybody struggling to get the tires to work. Either the fronts weren't working, or then suddenly they would work and you get oversteer, which we saw from FP1 to FP2 on those running the medium tires. Overall it's been a fairly quiet day for us. We completed all of the work we needed to, and I'm reasonably happy with where we are on both low and high fuel. There was quite a lot of graining on the soft and supersoft for everybody, but we seemed pretty good both this morning and this afternoon in having relatively low graining, especially on the front tires. The focus for tomorrow will be on getting our low fuel set-up right and I'm confident that we have a good direction for that."

Red Bull-Tag Heuer

Daniel Ricciardo (5th, 1:20.448): "It's really difficult to find the right set-up with these conditions, when there is low grip you have a bit of under-steer and also a bit of over-steer so setting the car up is tricky. I think we improved from the morning but there is still some progress to make so we'll still prepare for a pretty low-grip track tomorrow and try to improve the balance. I think it will get better, I expected the grip to be higher after a year but it was still very slippery. By Sunday the last half of the race will be better but I think we'll fight the balance from now until the end, trying to get comfortable with a slick-feeling track. The supersoft today wasn't a great tire for the long runs as it wasn't lasting. I don't know how the others got on but I believe everyone has had a few problems with that compound so it'll be interesting in qualifying tomorrow. We might see a mixed bag again."

Max Verstappen (7th, 1:20.619): "It was not ideal to miss a lot of the first practice session because of my brakes overheating, but we did some good work on the car in the second session which was positive. The brake issue was from pushing a bit hard on the in lap, therefore the temperatures were higher than usual. Due to the time I missed this morning I am still not completely happy with the set-up of the car over a short distance, but I think we have found a good long run pace for now. It was a bit tricky out there on supersofts but the car felt especially good on the medium compound, which I think is a good sign for race day. I think we can be competitive on Sunday as I was still making set-up changes towards the end of the second session, they are starting to come together now so I can improve from here. The make-up is off today, so it's game face for the rest of the weekend."

Force India-Mercedes

Nico Hulkenberg (6th, 1:20.574): "The main focus on Friday is to complete your program without issues, and from this perspective we had a good day. Most of the challenges we are facing are the same as last year – the altitude makes a big difference to the feel of the car with a loss of downforce – so we need to adapt to the conditions to find the ideal balance for the car. The rest of the day was quite standard, mostly learning about the tire compounds, and I feel we did a good job with it. The morning session didn't tell us much: the track was very cold and very dirty, so getting good information was difficult. We were able to assess the tires in the afternoon and there wasn't any particular surprise. In terms of car balance, we have made a good start but I am not completely happy yet: there is still a good margin for improvement and I hope we can dial our car in to find it overnight."

Sergio Perez (15th, 1:21.579): "Racing at home is a very emotional moment, but when I get in the car it's important that I treat this weekend like any other race. The morning went very well and I had a good feeling with the car. I struggled more in the afternoon, but we know where we need to focus and the direction we need to take to improve for tomorrow. The conditions today were not what we anticipated, but the rest of the weekend should be warmer: we will need to set the car up for what we think we are going to find on race day, but I think the data we collected today will allow us to do so."

Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal: "It was very cold this morning, meaning the conditions weren't very representative of what we expect for the rest of the weekend. Track temperatures were slightly higher in the afternoon, and we could focus on understanding the two race tire compounds: medium and soft. We didn't have any interruptions and gathered a lot of good data about how to set the car up on race day. Overall, Nico appears happier with the base balance of the car, whereas there are still a few elements on which to work with Sergio. Our focus now is on preparing the car for qualifying with a view to extracting the most out of it – it's the work we will be doing in the final practice session tomorrow morning."

Renault

Kevin Magnussen (14th, 1:21.442): "We made some good progress with the car today. It was my first time driving this circuit and I'm happy we were able to get the car dialed-in where we wanted as it felt much better in the second session. It's the altitude that takes your breath away here rather than the track layout, which is pretty straight-forward. I certainly want some more grip tomorrow."

Jolyon Palmer (16th, 1:21.785): "That was a reasonable Friday for us however we still need to work on the balance of the car as it isn't where I want it. The track is certainly slippery. We saw the grip improve over the sessions today and we'd certainly expect it to improve further tomorrow and on Sunday. I would have liked to have felt a little happier at the end of the day today, so we've got some work to do."

Nick Chester, Technical Director: "From a technical perspective it was a solid day for us: we completed our program, we ran with the HALO for the first time, we saw no problems with the cars and both drivers we reasonably happy. On Kevin's side of the garage the balance improved for FP2 and he was able to post some reasonable laps in that session. Jolyon still isn't 100% happy with the balance on his car so there's a little work to be done there. Now our focus is working out how to get the maximum from the tires including extending the super soft compound's performance life. We saw a lot of track surface improvement over the course of the day and we expect that to continue tomorrow and beyond."

Toro Rosso-Ferrari

Carlos Sainz (9th, 1:20.974): "I'd say it's been an interesting Friday. In particular, with the supersoft tire being introduced here this year and the fact that the track temperatures have been super low today, I think it's been a very challenging day – not only for us but for the whole grid. Hopefully this will create some opportunities for us on Sunday. At the moment we've performed well – inside the top ten – but we can't forget that it's only Friday, we know that things can change quickly on Saturdays. The good thing is that we've started the weekend positively and we will remain calm, work hard, extract the maximum out of the car and see where we end up!"

Daniil Kvyat (11th, 1:21.193): "I think it was a good day. We've ticked most of the boxes on our program and I'm happy with how both practice sessions went – my race engineer Pierre is happy too, so that's good! We now have to analyze all the data collected and get ready for the rest of the weekend. I'm feeling good in the car, even if the conditions out there today were a bit tricky because it's very cold – therefore, like all the other teams, we will also need to find a good approach for this kind of conditions. We will work hard tonight and tomorrow we will see who's done the best job."

Jody Egginton, Head of Vehicle Performance: "I think we can be pleased with the work we have done on both sides of the garage today. Both cars had a reasonable baseline balance out of the box, which meant we could directly focus on the run program whilst also giving consideration to the fact that the low track and ambient temperatures in FP1 were having a notable effect on tire performance, especially with the higher working range soft compound. We achieved our FP1 objectives in terms of ensuring that the various systems were performing as expected in this challenging environment. We also gathered tire data which, even if it was effected by the running conditions, it was in line with expectations. Changes ahead of FP2 were limited to small adjustments and changes in line with increased track and ambient temperatures. The FP2 run program was completed with short run performance being okay, although we still have to work hard optimizing the parts of our package we can influence, to try and compensate for areas of the package which are more fixed. As expected, the long run with the supersoft compound was challenging, but this was also the case in Austin so we are confident we can find some more performance on this compound. The soft and medium tire performed as expected, so overall we are happy. One of the key points for the remainder of the weekend will be to keep an eye on the track and ambient temperature change, together with further set up optimization and, if we manage this as well as we did in Austin, then we should be in good shape."

Sauber-Ferrari

Marcus Ericsson (18th, 1:21.997):

Felipe Nasr (19th, 1:22.037):

Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal:

McLaren-Honda

Fernando Alonso (10th, 1:21.003): "It has been a demanding day for everyone, with a very dirty and slippery track, like last year. In the first session, we tried a few things on the car, then in the second session we tested different tire compounds, but the degradation was quite significant. The situation will surely improve tomorrow and on Sunday, when the track will clean up and we will have much more grip. At the end of the second session we saw an anomaly in the braking system so we stopped, as a precaution, to do some checks. Tomorrow we'll be working more on finding performance, but, even so, making it into Q3 may not be easy."

Jenson Button (12th, 1:21.198): "We started off this morning doing quite a lot of general testing work, so FP1 wasn't so useful for this weekend. In FP2 we could do a lot more Mexico-specific testing – we worked a lot on the balance – and we finally found something that's a bit more interesting. I don't think it's ever going to feel good here, with such low grip because of the thin air, but hopefully we've found something we can work with tomorrow. There's quite a bit of graining on the Supersoft tire, but the degradation got better throughout the session. The long runs were tricky though, and I think everyone found that on the Supersoft, but we've just got to try to make the best of what we have. At the start of the race I think a lot of cars on the Supersoft will be pitting four or five laps in, but that'll mix it up and I think it'll add a bit of excitement. The Medium tire is working better than the other two: it lasts the longest and we haven't seen any graining on it so far, but there's correspondingly less grip on it. I think we're on the edge of the top 10. It might be a little bit more difficult than at the last race, but it's not such a bad thing to be just outside the top 10 because that way you get a choice on tire strategy. Obviously we'll try our best to get into Q3, even so, but the race strategy is more important than the kudos of Q3, and the goal is to score points. Finally, it's really nice to see so many people here already on a Friday. The fans are fantastic here and there's a lot of support for Formula 1. There's a great atmosphere – I'm looking forward to the weekend."

Eric Boullier, Racing Director: "This morning we were perhaps a little surprised by the very cold weather, which chilled the track surface considerably, but both our drivers nonetheless coped well with the consequent lower-than-expected tire temperatures, the result being an incident-free FP1 session for us. However, this afternoon, as the air temperatures increased, taking the chill off the asphalt, both Fernando and Jenson reported better, more balanced and more drivable handling characteristics. Owing to the high altitude, the thin air makes things tricky aerodynamically though. We managed to complete all our planned programs for both cars, across both sessions, and ended up a creditable if unspectacular 10th- and 12th-fastest at the end of FP2. We have a lot of number-crunching to do this evening, but we have reason to hope for a reasonable qualifying performance tomorrow afternoon, when the air temperature is forecast to pass 20 degrees Celsius for the first time since we've been here."

Yusuke Hasegawa, Honda: "The first two free practices of the Mexican Grand Prix have been very busy. Owing to the very cold and dusty track conditions of this morning, we struggled with grip, making balance confirmation very difficult. Despite these conditions, FP1 was a very full session, confirming power unit performance balance in the high altitude environment, as well as general aero testing and chassis balance. During the lunch break the sun did help to warm up the track for FP2, whereby we performed our usual set-up changes and long runs to help us refine our package for tomorrow's running. With the improvement on our turbo, we can say that the overall altitude effect is much less than last year, but we still have a lot more engine mapping and deployment data to look at and tweak to make it better for tomorrow."

Manor GP-Mercedes

Pascal Wehrlein (17th, 1:21.980): "Overall I feel positive about today. In fact, this is the first Friday I'm happy about since quite a long time. It was a fairly normal program, other than that we started out slightly differently by working with the Soft tire, before the Medium. Our pace looks good, more or less similar to Sauber, so I'm happy with that. And I like the track. It has a nice fast, flowing rhythm and it's fun to drive. So, a good start. It was quite challenging out there! We have been struggling a bit with tire temperature, which is making our life a little bit more difficult, but we will do our best to improve for tomorrow."

Esteban Ocon (21st, 1:22.298): "Honestly, it has been a difficult start to the weekend for us. We've struggled a bit today with how the car is handling. We tried some different things to try to improve, but it was still difficult to drive. We need to have a good look at why and see what we can do to get around that for tomorrow. I really like the track here, it's very challenging with high speed sections, which is great, but it requires more confidence to get a good lap time. I think to some extent we'll be starting afresh tomorrow. Hopefully we'll have solved the issues and we'll be able to squeeze a lot of things into FP3 to get back up to speed and to where we need to be ahead of qualifying."

Dave Ryan, Racing Director: "We've made a reasonably good start to our weekend here. In fact, FP2 was our second best practice session of the season, in terms of our performance relative to the fastest car. It is however only Friday, so we'll see that for what it is at this stage – an encouraging start. It has been a pretty cold day here, which presented a few challenges with the tires and grip levels, but nevertheless Pascal had a good couple of sessions and seems quite comfortable. Esteban experienced a few handling issues with his car, which we'll need to get on top of tonight to give him the best shot at tomorrow."

Haas-Ferrari

Romain Grosjean (20th, 1:22.105): "The morning wasn't too bad, but our afternoon was disastrous. It's up to us to work around that. When we have problems like this on Friday, it tends to cost us on Sunday. Granted, we still have tomorrow, but we need to make the most of it in light of everything we dealt with today."

Esteban Gutierrez (22nd, 1:22.408): "It was great to get to know my home circuit. It's very exciting to be here and to drive the track, which is amazing, in front of all the Mexican fans. We're going to have to keep working on the performance side of things, which isn't great at the moment. The car was difficult to drive during FP2 and had little grip. We'll be working on that tonight to try to sort out our setup and make things better for FP3 and qualifying."

Guenther Steiner, Team Principal: "FP1 was a pretty good session for both Romain and Esteban and we managed to get all of our program completed. FP2, however, was not what we wanted. Romain had an immediate problem with the ECU and that stopped us. We had to change a lot of the electronic equipment, which left him with only the last 30 minutes of the session. So, we couldn't get everything done that we needed to do. With Esteban, he had no grip in comparison to FP1 and was just sliding around out there. We will be looking into this to see what we can find out and, hopefully, find a solution for FP3 tomorrow."

Results

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	TIME	BEHIND	LAPS
1	5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:19.790	+0.000s	47
2	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:19.794	+0.004s	37
3	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:20.225	+0.435s	46
4	7	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:20.259	+0.469s	37
5	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer	1:20.448	+0.658s	43
6	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India Mercedes	1:20.574	+0.784s	43
7	33	Max Verstappen	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer	1:20.619	+0.829s	42
8	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Mercedes	1:20.629	+0.839s	41
9	55	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso Ferrari	1:20.974	+1.184s	46
10	14	Fernando Alonso	McLaren Honda	1:21.003	+1.213s	25
11	26	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso Ferrari	1:21.193	+1.403s	39
12	22	Jenson Button	McLaren Honda	1:21.198	+1.408s	39
13	19	Felipe Massa	Williams Mercedes	1:21.326	+1.536s	45
14	20	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1:21.442	+1.652s	39
15	11	Sergio Perez	Force India Mercedes	1:21.579	+1.789s	41
16	30	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:21.785	+1.995s	44
17	94	Pascal Wehrlein	MRT Mercedes	1:21.980	+2.190s	42
18	9	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber Ferrari	1:21.997	+2.207s	42
19	12	Felipe Nasr	Sauber Ferrari	1:22.037	+2.247s	43
20	8	Romain Grosjean	Haas Ferrari	1:22.105	+2.315s	14
21	31	Esteban Ocon	MRT Mercedes	1:22.298	+2.508s	44
22	21	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas Ferrari	1:22.408	+2.618s	33