Originally Posted by
Nova
Report from Motorsport.com..part of it anyway..think it mentions tires.
Sebastian Vettel topped the times in FP2 for the Mexican Grand Prix, the first time a Ferrari has led a practice session since the Belgian GP in August.
Vettel beat Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton by four thousandths of a second in the supersoft low-fuel runs.
Nico Rosberg was again well off teammate Hamilton's pace but that was enough for third, ahead of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen.
Red Bull struggled for raw pace, and set the fifth and seventh quickest times with Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen respectively, who sandwiched Force India's Nico Hulkenberg.
During the long runs towards the end of the session, Vettel tripped over McLaren's Fernando Alonso and branded him "an idiot" after he ran wide at Turn 12.
Story of the session
Raikkonen set the early benchmark at 1m22.075s on the medium-compound tyre. Verstappen ran early, keen to make up for the time lost in the first session due to a rear-brake fire.
"Struggling overall with warm-up, very poor grip all around," reported Vettel, just before he took the fastest time with a lap of 1m22.024s to make it a Ferrari 1-2.
There was plenty of early action: Perez suffered a spin at Turn 5, and Rosberg also went off track on his first run of the day. Nasr spun at Turn 6, and Ricciardo went over the kerbs at Turn 12.
Hamilton suffered no such drama, unleashing a 1m20.362s on softs to go P1 by 1.662s at the time. He then suffered a huge lockup at Turn 1, and reported: "This tyre is completely done."
Rosberg got to within 1.151s with a 1m21.513s, then a 1m21.416s lowered the gap to 1.054s.
Vettel was the first frontrunner to try new supersofts, achieving a 1m19.790s at his first attempt.
Raikkonen went P2, despite having to pass Vettel at Turn 1 on his flying lap, with his 1m20.259s effort 0.46s down on his teammate.
Verstappen produced 1m20.619s, which was slower than Hamilton's soft-tyre time. Rosberg went only P4 on supersofts, producing 1m20.406s – also slower than Hamilton's lap on softs.
Hamilton gets close to Vettel's P1
Hamilton then went P2 on supersofts, his 1m19.803s just 0.013s slower than Vettel as he caught a Toro Rosso in the final corners. He complained of traffic on his second flyer, but then improved to 1m19.794s on his third attempt, setting the overall second sector time.
In contrast, Rosberg improved on his second 'push' lap to 1m20.225s to go P3, 0.435s down on Vettel, with Ricciardo going P5 on 1m20.448s.
Nico Hulkenberg was the fastest Force India in sixth, ahead of Verstappen.
Valtteri Bottas was eighth fastest for Williams, ahead of Carlos Sainz's Toro Rosso and Alonso. Sainz had a run-in with Renault's Kevin Magnussen on the run to Turn 1.
Daniil Kvyat was 11th for Toro Rosso, ahead of McLaren's Jenson Button – who reported: "Really struggling with grip. The rear just feels like it's going to fall over."
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