Temperatures drop, competition heats up in Mexico City

• Lewis topped the morning session with Nico P7
• Lewis then set the second fastest time of the day in the afternoon session, Nico the third fastest
• Both drivers ran the Medium and Soft compound tyre in the morning session, the Medium, Soft and SuperSoft in the afternoon session

Lewis Hamilton

It’s great to be back here in Mexico. The support we’ve had here already is amazing – and it’s only Friday! There’s so much energy and enthusiasm for the sport here, which is great to see. It’s been a solid day in terms of our programme for the weekend. The cars are obviously faster but lap times are pretty strong already. The track is feeling better than it did last year and I feel a lot more comfortable in the car than I did the first time we came to this circuit, so hopefully I can carry that through the rest of the weekend.

Nico Rosberg

It was an unusual day out there with the low temperatures and a very green track. So, it’s been a bit of a steep learning curve to understand what to do with the tyres – how to get the best out of them for one lap and also for the long runs. We really learned a lot today and it’s not been a bad start overall but we have a lot of homework to do tonight. The car was feeling okay on the medium tyre but even there we need to make some progress to understand where we can find some performance. Ferrari seemed very quick here today, so they will be a big threat. Let’s see how tomorrow goes. It feels great to be back in Mexico. The fans are outstanding here. Already on Friday it's really packed out there in the stands, which is awesome.

Paddy Lowe, Executive Director (Technical)

A good day’s work. Very cold, which we weren’t really prepared for, and a circuit that was dirty to start off with. But this all soon settled down and we ran a problem-free programme, looking at the three different tyre compounds and their performance for qualifying and the race as usual. We also did a lot more work than usual with engine and brake settings to tune the car to this high altitude. It was quite a complicated day from a data point of view and, comparing ourselves to the opposition, it looks very close between the top three teams as things stand. It’s great to see such and large and energetic crowd – already on a Friday. We look forward to some good on-track battles and more of this brilliant atmosphere over the next two days.