Lewis Hamilton was the man to beat in the opening practice session at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.

The Mercedes driver set the pace on the white-marked medium tyre, the hardest of the three dry tyres brought by Pirelli to this weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix.

Sebastian Vettel was just 0.079s off Hamilton’s benchmark, setting his time on the yellow-marked soft tyre. Vettel led teammate Raikkonen and the Force India duo of Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg.

Force India opted to do all of their running in FP1 on the red-marked supersoft tyre suggesting that they are not as quick as their times suggest.

Valtteri Bottas was an impressive sixth for Williams, also on the soft tyre. Bottas led championship leader Nico Rosberg, who can win the title this weekend if he wins and Hamilton fails to finish Sunday’s race.

Daniel Ricciardo, Felipe Massa and recently retained at Toro Rosso for 2017, Daniil Kvyat, rounded out the top 10 spots.

There was a brief red flag period halfway through the session after Felipe Nasr’s front wing disintegrated resulting in lots of debris being sprayed on the circuit.