Mexican F1 Grand Prix 2017 Qualifying: Results, Times from Friday's Practice

Daniel Ricciardo topped the timesheets in the second practice session ahead of the 2017 Mexican Formula One Grand Prix on Friday with a time of one minute, 17.801 seconds.

Lewis Hamilton was 0.131 seconds behind, one of eight drivers who came within one second of the Australian in FP2.

In FP1, Valtteri Bottas set a time of 1:17.824 to take first place ahead of Mercedes team-mate Hamilton, while Red Bull duo Max Verstappen and Ricciardo claimed third and fourth, respectively.

FP2 Recap

Here are the FP2 standings, courtesy of Formula One's official Twitter feed:

The session was disrupted early on as Romain Grosjean spun at Turn 17, resulting in damage to his car:

Hamilton did the same at Turn 11 soon after the session restarted, which required a change of tyres.

Once on the ultrasofts the Englishman quickly raced to P1, while Vettel recovered from a fire extinguisher malfunction to put himself in contention, though not before a change of clothes:

It was Ricciardo who shot to the top of the standings with a superb effort, however:

As in FP1, Verstappen's session ended early—this time because of an engine issue—but he nevertheless came third.

It was an incredibly closely run contest in FP2. Neither Red Bull or Ferrari made use of the ultrasoft tyres in FP1 but they were able to use them to close the gap in FP2, and Saturday's qualifying action is shaping up to be a thrilling battle if Friday is anything to go by.

FP1 Recap

Here are the standings from FP1:

Antonio Giovinazzi was the only one out early on, and it was not until 20 minutes in that another driver set a time, when Bottas immediately surpassed him.

Hamilton quickly joined his Silver Arrows team-mate at the top of the standings despite an early slip off the track:

The pair duelled with Sebastian Vettel and Verstappen, while Brendon Hartley was able to overcome his car stopping on the track, which had prompted the deployment of the virtual safety car.

Pirelli Motorsport painted a picture of the situation after the Mercedes duo were split by their rivals:

A switch to ultrasoft tyres proved fruitful for Bottas as he quickly set a record lap on the circuit, while Hamilton was able to battle back to P2, and the pair would remain in those positions for the remainder of the session.

Driving Esteban Ocon's car, Mexico native Alfonso Celis caused the red flags to come out when he hit a wall, per Sky Sports F1:

At the top of the standings, Verstappen was able to hang onto P3 despite his session coming to an early close when he returned to the garage for work.