Bottas leads Mercedes 1-2 in disrupted free practice

Valtteri Bottas led team-mate Lewis Hamilton in a disrupted first free practice ahead of the Mexican Grand Prix.

Valtteri Bottas beat team-mate Lewis Hamilton to top the times in the first free practice session ahead of the Mexican Grand Prix.

The Mercedes duo, Max Verstappen, and Sebastian Vettel swapped times at the top of the order, with the Ferrari driver top of the order midway through the session.

Bottas jumped up the order just after the midpoint with a lap time of 1m17.824s, a time that wouldn’t be beaten before the chequered flag. Hamilton, more than 0.4s slower, took second ahead of the Red Bull duo of Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo.

A virtual safety car and red flag stopped the session on separate occasions as Brendon Hartley and Alfonso Celis Jnr ran into trouble on the Mexican track.

In only his second Formula 1 weekend, Hartley came to a stop on track early in the session and brought out the virtual safety car. He soon managed to get his car moving again, but could only finish the session 18th fastest, a tenth of a second slower than Sean Gelael in the other Toro Rosso.

Celis was the only man to set a best lap time slower than Hartley. The Mexican had already set his best time – a 1m22.342s – when he lost the rear of his Force India late in the session and hit the wall at the final corner of the track. With severe damage to the rear of the car, the red flags were brought out.

Stoffel Vandoorne failed to set a lap time. McLaren had spotted a problem with his engine on the Belgian’s instillation lap and he was confined to the pits as the team changed the power unit. Team-mate Fernando Alonso managed to finish eighth fastest, behind Kimi Raikkonen and Sergio Perez.

Felipe Massa and Nico Hulkenberg rounded out the top 10.

Carlos Sainz Jnr finished just outside the top 10 in 11th, ahead of Lance Stroll, Kevin Magnussen, and Pascal Wehrlein.

Ferrari juniors Antonio Giovinazzi and Charles Leclerc were both on track. Giovinazzi in the Haas was the faster of the two, finishing the session a tenth of a second faster than Leclerc in the Sauber.