Max Verstappen led a one-two for Red Bull in the first practice session for the Mexican Grand Prix at Hermanos Rodriguez. Daniel Ricciardo was second. He led the times in the first part of the session after Verstappen was held up behind Antonio Giovinazzi at the end of his first flying lap on hyper-soft tyres.
With the softest rubber degrading very quickly, drivers found they only had one lap to get the best out of them, and many complaining on their radios about how quickly they went off.
Ricciardo lowered his best time on his next run but Verstappen took over a second off it when he returned to the track. The Red Bull pair ended up separated by less than half a second as the chequered flag fell.
The Renault drivers, who also did two runs on the hyper-softs. They were next-quickest, albeit well over a second slower than the two Red Bulls.
Lewis Hamilton was fifth-quickest in the first of the Mercedes, but was plagued by power delivery glitches during the session.
Valtteri Bottas was two-tenths off his team mate.
The Ferrari pair Vettel and Raikkonen were 7th and 8th. They run different version of their aerodynamic specification on their two cars. Kimi Raikkonen ran the newer floor and the United States Grand Prix winner had a quick spin at turn six.
Brendon Hartley was ninth for Toro Rosso. While Pierre Gasly did a perfunctory run in the other car before having an engine change. He will start from the back of the grid again this weekend.
The two Force Indias were next, test driver Nicholas Latifi keeping home hero Sergio Perez out of the top 10 by four-hundredths of a second. The second test driver in the session, Antonio Giovinazzi, was 12th for Sauber. Lando Norris put his McLaren 15th after a near-miss with Latifi.
FP1 CLASSIFICATION: @redbullracing and @RenaultSportF1 ? lead the way #MexicoGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/Qyqb373oGa
— Formula 1 (@F1) October 26, 2018
