Hamilton edges Leclerc and Verstappen narrowly in FP1 in Mexico!
Breaking News
- Nicolás Quarles van Ufford
On the weekend where he can be crowned world champion, Lewis Hamilton has topped the timesheets in the first practice session ahead of Sunday's Mexican Grand Prix, with the Brit narrowly edging out young stars Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen to kick off the F1 weekend at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
Leclerc and Verstappen were both just over a tenth of a second off Hamilton's pace, although it must be added the Ferrari set that time on medium tyres compared to the other two's soft tyres.
The session started on a wet track but it dried up as time progressed, with lap times dropping off dramatically once it was safe to bring out the slick tyres.
The Williams of Robert Kubica was manned by reserve driver Nicholas Latifi for the morning session, with the Canadian who is linked for that very seat for 2020 finishing a full second behind the other FW42 of George Russell.
Slip 'n slide
There were plenty of drivers looking for and going over the limit during FP1, with Pierre Gasly spinning out early. However, the Frenchman kept his STR14 out of the barriers, something which couldn't be said of Lance Stroll, who barrelled into the tyre wall causing a red flag.
He broke his rear wing but limped back to the pitlane and there was no permanent damage done, as the one-time podium finisher came back out for more laps by the end of the session.
Champion?
Valtteri Bottas finished the session in fifth, and with Hamilton finishing on top, that very classification would be enough for the Brit to be crowned champion if the race were to end like that.
The 34-year-old needs to outscore Bottas by at least 13 points to seal his sixth title for him to mathematically win the championship, and Bottas in P5 would be enough for that to be the case, as he would be scoring 15 points less than the race winner should he finish in P5.