Hamilton ahead as lap times tumble in Mexico

Lewis Hamilton was quickest as practice for the Mexican Grand Prix began in cool conditions.

The Mercedes driver used the hardest rubber available the weekend, the medium compound, to lead the times on a 1’20.914, five seconds inside the best time from the same session 12 months ago. Team mate Nico Rosberg also used the medium compound for his quickest run and lapped seven-tenths slower than his team mate, the pair separated by five of their rivals.

Those were led by the Ferrari pair, Sebastian Vettel fractionally quicker than Kimi Raikkonen as both set their quickest times on soft tyres.

The two Force Indias were next, Sergio Perez ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, both VJM09 drivers on the super-soft rubber. Hulkenberg reported problems with his DRS on more than one occasion, which was occasionally deploying on straights were it shouldn’t have been available.

Encouragingly for Williams, Valtteri Bottas was just a few hundredths of a second slower than Hulkenberg, using the soft tyres. Felipe Massa was also inside the top ten.

Red Bull kept a low profile in the session, Daniel Ricciardo the highest of their drivers in eighth place. Max Verstappen’s running was disrupted when his rear brakes caught fire after one run.

Felipe Nasr hit trouble too when the right-hand side of his front wing collapsed after he ran down the kerb at the exit of turn 11. The wing shattered as he ran over it and the session was stopped for almost ten minutes while the debris was cleared away.

The track temperature never rose above 26C, significantly below last year’s peak of 40C during this session.

First practice visual gaps

Drivers more then ten seconds off the pace omitted.