Vettel tops Friday running at Mexico

F1 Grand Prix, GP Mexico, Autódromo Hermanos Rodriguez

Sebastian Vettel may have surprised many by topping the times in the second practice session ahead of the Mexican Grand Prix. Even though he outpaced Lewis Hamilton by just four thousandths of a second, the result must boost the Italians amidst a poor season.

Nico Rosberg was third fastest, 4 tenths down and only a fraction ahead of Kimi Raikkonen, who made it a Ferrari - Mercedes top 4. Daniel Ricciardo was 5th fastest while Nico Hulkenberg was the fastest driver on softs, whereas the cars faster than him had all used the super soft tyres.

The German edged out Verstappen, Bottas and Sainz while Fernando Alonso completed the top 10. The Spaniard saw his running end 15 minutes before the end of the session, for undisclosed reasons.

Daniil Kvyat was 11th fastest. Even though he was a bit slower than his team mate Carlos Sainz, a stoppage on the pit entry due to a "loss of power" at the very end of the session may be the Russian's biggest worry.

Romain Grosjean finally was even worse off, with an electrical problem sidelining him for more than an hour, eventually resulting in the 20th time of the day. That was still faster than his Haas team mate, as Gutierrez ended up slowest, about 2.6s slower than the pace setting Ferrari.