Mexican GP: Vettel beats Hamilton by 0.004s in second practice

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."

Felipe Massa was 13th fastest for Williams, ahead of Magnussen.

Sergio Perez failed to run the supersoft tyre, and was 15th for Force India, ahead of Jolyon Palmer's Renault, Pascal Wehrlein's Manor and the Saubers of Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr.

Haas's Romain Grosjean missed a huge chunk of the session after his Haas suffered an ERS failure following his installation lap. He was 20th, with teammate Esteban Gutierrez slowest of all, behind Manor's Esteban Ocon.

The session finished with yellow flags on track after Kvyat stopped on track with an apparent engine failure. 

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Engine	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval
1	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	Ferrari	47	1'19.790
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	Mercedes	37	1'19.794	0.004	0.004
3	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	Mercedes	46	1'20.225	0.435	0.431
4	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	Ferrari	37	1'20.259	0.469	0.034
5	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	TAG	43	1'20.448	0.658	0.189
6	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	Mercedes	43	1'20.574	0.784	0.126
7	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	TAG	42	1'20.619	0.829	0.045
8	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	Mercedes	41	1'20.629	0.839	0.010
9	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Toro Rosso	Ferrari	46	1'20.974	1.184	0.345
10	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	Honda	25	1'21.003	1.213	0.029
11	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso	Ferrari	39	1'21.193	1.403	0.190
12	Jenson Button	McLaren	Honda	39	1'21.198	1.408	0.005
13	Felipe Massa	Williams	Mercedes	45	1'21.326	1.536	0.128
14	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	Renault	39	1'21.442	1.652	0.116
15	Sergio Perez	Force India	Mercedes	41	1'21.579	1.789	0.137
16	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	Renault	44	1'21.785	1.995	0.206
17	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor	Mercedes	42	1'21.980	2.190	0.195
18	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	Ferrari	42	1'21.997	2.207	0.017
19	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	Ferrari	43	1'22.037	2.247	0.040
20	Romain Grosjean	Haas	Ferrari	14	1'22.105	2.315	0.068
21	Esteban Ocon	Manor	Mercedes	44	1'22.298	2.508	0.193
22	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas	Ferrari	33	1'22.408	2.618	0.110