Ferrari’s Vettel adds spice to Mexican F1 Grand Prix
mexico city — Ferrari found the pace to put some spice into the Mexican Grand Prix.
Sebastian Vettel jumped ahead of the Mercedes championship duel by posting the fastest time of Friday’s practice sessions, sending a warning that there’s still life in the Italian team near the end of what has been a disappointing season. Vettel sprung a surprise lap of 1 minute, 19.794 seconds. Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton pulled within 0.004 seconds but couldn’t find the lap to catch Vettel before the session ended.
“The car seems to work, not only from the result but as an overall feeling ... We had a very good day,” Vettel said, adding he expects better times from Hamilton in Saturday qualifying. “I think he has more in the pocket, so tomorrow we need to be realistic.”
Hamilton trails teammate Nico Rosberg by 26 points in the championship standings heading into the final three races of the season
Verstappen woes continue
Points lead for Mercedes’ Rosberg MEXICO CITY — Max Verstappen’s colourful impact on Formula One continued on Friday when 24 hours after wishing for a quieter life in the cockpit his car was briefly engulfed in flames when his brakes caught fire.
The incident happened in the morning practice session where the Dutch teenager was seeking to bounce back from a troubled and likely needs to win to keep the pressure on. Rosberg was 0.435 seconds behind Hamilton in third on Friday. All the drivers are contending with cool temperatures, high altitude and an evolving track, which they expect will have more grip after its debut last season.
On one early lap, Rosberg had a tire lockup near the end of the long straight, driving through the first turn and onto the grass before US Grand Prix last Sunday which ended in retirement due to a car failure.
“I think it was all a bit unfortunate for me as I needed to do two installation laps just to go out again and they told me to keep pushing. I think you can’t push in your in-lap and all in all, with those combinations, the brakes caught a bit of a fire.”— straightening out. That followed an early practice session when Rosberg finished a distant seventh behind Hamilton despite running on the same medium tires.
“Ferrari seemed very quick, so they will be a big threat,” Rosberg said in post-practice TV interviews. Ferrari’s good sessions Friday show the red cars could scramble the season championship just a bit. — AP