Red Bull’s Max Verstappen set an imposing pace in Friday practice at the Mexico City Grand Prix.
The world championship leader was 0.424 seconds quicker than Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas, with Verstappen’s title rival Lewis Hamilton 0.509secs off the pace.
Hamilton trails Verstappen by 12 points before Sunday’s race.
Red Bull’s Sergio Perez was fourth quickest, ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was seventh, ahead of Alpha Tauri’s Yuki Tsunoda, Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel and Alpine’s Fernando Alonso.
The day’s running produced the expected picture at the front – Verstappen a strong favourite for race victory and Hamilton and Mercedes facing a race of damage limitation.
After lagging half a second or so behind on a single flying lap, Hamilton and Bottas appeared to be a similar sort of margin behind on the race-simulations runs in the second part of the session, although these were not directly comparable, as the two teams were using different tyres.
However, deeper analysis of the longer runs suggested some encouragement for Mercedes.
The world champions were nip and tuck with Verstappen after switching from the soft tyre to the hard later in the race runs, when Red Bull stayed on the mediums they had run from the start.
As the race is expected to be run on the medium and hard tyres, with teams avoiding the softs on Sunday, the picture may not be as bleak for Hamilton as the one-lap pace on Friday portrayed.
This is the first of five races in six weekends that will bring the F1 season to a close.
Mercedes have always thought this would be a difficult weekend for them, because their car and engine do not work as well at the 2,200m altitude at which the track is situated as the Red Bull and its Honda power-unit.
Verstappen said: “It was quite a good day. Always trying to improve the car. It seemed like the car is working quite well. A few things to look at, but pretty good. It’s a positive start to the weekend.”
Hamilton said: “The car has been feeling OK. We have not had any major issues. We are giving it absolutely everything we’ve got and they are just quicker than us at the moment.
“I have no real concerns. Just chipping away at the set-up and trying to improve it. We are lacking downforce, which is probably why we have the half-second difference to us.”
Mercedes were losing most time through the corners in the second half of the lap, as Red Bull’s higher downforce setting paid dividends.
McLaren’s Lando Norris was 12th fastest and Williams driver George Russell last having set no time because of a gearbox problem.
