TOP NEWS :Verstappen stays ahead, Mercedes and Ferrari struggle.... Max Verstappen has topped the second practice session from Mexico, making it a clean sweep on Friday. The Dutchman was quickest this morning, and his lap time from free practice two was a 1:16.720, which was almost a second up on his lap from this morning.
However, his day of optimism was spoiled towards the end of the session as the 21-year-old pulled over to the side of the track in sector one after he suffered a complete power loss, similar to what happened to teammate Daniel Ricciardo in Austin last Sunday. Can Max Verstappen win the Mexican Grand Prix? The Red Bull driver is currently 6/4 to win!. Tyre degradation didn't improve from this morning, as the hyper soft tyre wore away extremely quickly once again.
The top teams face a conundrum on whether or not they should try advancing from Q2 on a harder tyre, while potentially giving up lap time to cars behind. Ricciardo came home in second place, as he did this morning. His time was 0.153s behind his teammate, and Red Bull appear to be the fastest team this weekend with its nearest rivals over a second down. Mercedes and Ferrari continued its struggles from the morning session, with Sebastian Vettel ending the day in fourth. He was sandwiched in between the two Renault drivers of Carlos Sainz and Nico Hulkenberg, who kept up their impressive pace from this morning.
With big question marks lingering over his future, Brendon Hartley was sixth fastest. The Toro Rosso driver ran with upgrades throughout the day that were put aside during in Austin one week ago. Lewis Hamilton was seventh, which is the position he needs to finish Sunday's race in to win the championship should rival Vettel take the victory. Behind the Briton was the second Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen, who led his compatriot Valtteri Bottas.
Local hero Sergio Perez rounded out the top ten and will be looking to produce a strong result this weekend in front of his home crowd. Action from the track on Saturday gets underway at 10:00 local time. GASLY HANDED PENALTY FOR MEXICAN GP. Pierre Gasly will start the Mexican Grand Prix from the back of the grid after Honda opted to revert to its old spec engine ahead of the weekend.
Gasly also received a penalty last weekend in the US, which knocked him back to the rear of the grid. Minor modifications were made to the engine before the race in Austin, and now this weekend in Mexico, Honda decided to input a fresh engine as they "have a concern regarding the assembly of the one used in Austin", according to their Technical Director Toyoharu Tanabe.
"That PU has been sent to Sakura for a full inspection and, at the moment, we are not sure if we can use it again this year. Therefore, by fitting a new one here, we add one to the pool of available units for the rest of this season," he continued. "From FP2 and for the rest of the weekend, Gasly will run an older specification PU. Brendon [Hartley] is also using this spec, for the entire weekend.
The reason for reverting to the earlier pre-Russia spec is that we have a better understanding of this version of the PU and are more confident in our ability to set it up correctly for the specific conditions here in Mexico City.". Toro Rosso is running with its upgrades on Hartley's car for the opening day of running as they assess the new parts.
The new floor and front wing were used in Austin, however insufficient data was collected due to heavy rain on Friday. FP1: VERSTAPPEN HEADS RED BULL 1-2 IN MEXICO. Max Verstappen has topped the first practice session from Mexico City as Red Bull emerged as the pace-setters from the session. Verstappen's fastest time was a 1:16.656, which is well over a second quicker than the FP1 time set twelve months ago by Valtteri Bottas. Verstappen's teammate Daniel Ricciardo finished in second place, just under half a second behind.
The Australian will be leaving Red Bull at the end of the year to join Renault, with the French squad being the surprise of the bunch at the end of the opening Friday session. Carlos Sainz and Nico Hulkenberg ended up in third and fourth place. The team will be hoping to continue the momentum from Austin, where it extended its gap to Haas in the fight for fourth place in the constructor's championship.
Behind the two Renault drivers came championship-chasing Lewis Hamilton. The Briton will be hoping to clinch his fifth world title this weekend and can do so if he finishes the race in P7 or higher, regardless of where rival Sebastian Vettel crosses the line. Tyre degradation was the main focal point of the session, as all cars appeared to be suffering massively with the hyper soft compound.
The pink-walled tyre started to grain after just a couple of laps, with teams now looking into set up changes to combat the issues. Valtteri Bottas was sixth in the second Mercedes. Vettel was behind the Silver Arrow and he led teammate Kimi Raikkonen. Raikkonen suffered from a low-speed spin early on in the session when track conditions were not good. Brendon Hartley, who is fighting for his future in Formula 1, was ninth. The Kiwi is running Toro Rosso's upgrades on Friday after they were postponed after Austin.
Should the data look positive, it is believed Hartley will keep the upgrades for the rest of the weekend. Nicolas Latifi rounded out the top ten in his latest outing for Force India. HAMILTON: RED BULL LOOK OUT OF REACH. Lewis Hamilton admits that Red Bull is looking out of reach after Friday practice in Mexico. The Milton-Keynes outfit was well ahead of Mercedes and Ferrari, with Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo heading both Friday practice sessions from Mexico City.
Mercedes suffered from overheating engines throughout the day and also saw the hyper soft tyre degrade extremely quickly. The German squad was not only behind Red Bull and rivals Ferrari, but also Renault who was the surprise of the bunch after Friday running. Will Lewis Hamilton win the Mexican Grand Prix? The Mercedes driver is currently 16/5 to win!.
It is likely that the top teams will pull some time back overnight, but for now, Hamilton fears that the energy drink squad is too far ahead: "The car was good in some places, but not so good in others," he said. "We've got some ground to catch up on, so we're now going to go through everything in the debrief and look at all the details to find some answers. "Red Bull seem out of our reach at the moment, Ferrari are right there with us, but we're here to try and compete, so we will do the best we can to have a real race.
On the long run I think I was right there with Sebastian [Vettel]'s times, so we'll have a bit of a battle.". Red Bull won the Mexican Grand Prix twelve months ago, with Verstappen getting past pole-sitter Sebastian Vettel at the start. The team has been targeting the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez for a number of weeks, believing it to be their best chance to win for the remainder of 2018. Degradation on the hyper soft tyre was high, with the pink-walled compound only lasting three to four laps on the long runs.
But Mercedes team boss James Allison added that the tyres were not the only issue the German squad had during the day. "We were overheating the power unit in a number of areas today, and that meant we had to protect against this by turning it down as a precaution," he said. "With a bit luck, and no little hard work, we can get ourselves into better shape tomorrow and on Sunday, when conditions are also forecast to be cooler.".
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