Mexican GP Friday practice
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"What the hell is this guy doing?" Stroll complains over the radio after coming across a Haas, which had just left the pits, at Turn 1.
Perez seventh on a 1m19.240s.
Edd Straw
Stroll very hesitant. Doesn't seem comfortable with the rear moving around into Turn 13 and kind of squeezes the car in with multiple applications of lock so he can feel the rear end.
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Vettel might be mega in front of Edd Straw but he had a bizarre wobble at Turn 7. Collected it well enough. That'd have been a heart-in-mouth moment for the Ferrari man.
Edd Straw
Vettel has the rear seemingly getting away from him, but great car control gets it into the apex. Most of the time he is balancing being aggressive with not overdoing it perfectly.
Improvements for Ricciardo and both Ferrari drivers. Ricciardo's fourth, Vettel fifth and Raikkonen sixth – although six tenths covers them in lap time. Could be closer.
Edd Straw
Raikkonen struggling to get the front end in as he wants and was just pushing through the understeer last time round with more lock. Vettel is working harder to get the rear to help him, although has had a lock up through here.
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Some (bad) news regarding grid penalties for both McLarens and Gasly. For clarity, this was confirmed prior to Vandoorne's engine change after the problem identified during this season, which shouldn't result in an additional penalty: 
Bottas, Vettel, Raikkonen, Perez, Massa and Stroll are on track as we head into the final 20 minutes of FP1.
Vettel heads straight back out and is joined soon after by Massa. There's a lot of work going on in the Red Bull garage on Verstappen's car.
That Celis shunt has thwarted some running but not by a huge amount. There's still more than 20 minutes on the clock now that track action has resumed.
Green flag
Green flag, session resumes. We can stop rambling.
Speaking of Raikkonen, the merits of the Finn's continued presence in F1 was brought up at dinner during the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award assessment days at Silverstone this week. Those in his corner included 2008 Award winner-turned-BMW GT ace Alexander Sims, and those against him included Autosport magazine editor Kevin Turner. It was a splendid debate. We're not sure who won. Probably Sims. He's quicker.
Take it back, Celis did back it into the wall pretty square. Another replay, looking back from the exit of the final corner, shows that the rear had come round a little bit more than we first thought. So there's less spectacular damage than there would be if he'd ripped the corner off the car – but there could still be gearbox damage or something painful under the skin.
Moments before Celis shunted, Raikkonen had a lazy spin at Turn 5 – where Gelael looped it earlier.
We'll leave that sentence there, for the Raikkonen haters to chuckle to themselves at the supposed comparison, and Raikkonen defenders to attack us for daring to supposedly compare him to Gelael.
We'll leave that sentence there, for the Raikkonen haters to chuckle to themselves at the supposed comparison, and Raikkonen defenders to attack us for daring to supposedly compare him to Gelael.
Marshals finally on the scene with Celis's car. A recovery vehicle with them.
Edd Straw
Can't say it's a surprise to see Celis crash in that way. Been too aggressive on the throttle through the stadium in general.
Replays show Celis just lost the rear on entry to the final corner and hit the wall on the outside weighted more to the left-rear – wasn't quite a square smack.
Ocon's looking on from the pitwall and doesn't look impressed. Celis is out of the car.
Red flag
The session has been red-flagged. Nightmare for the Mexican on his FP1 outing on home soil. Bad news for the team.
Crash
Ooh, shunt for Celis. He was rounding the final corner. The Force India's rear wing has been ripped off and there's quite a bit of damage to the rear of the car.
"I crashed." "Can you drive it?" "No."
"I crashed." "Can you drive it?" "No."
Edd Straw
Interesting contrast between Hamilton and Bottas. Hamilton is turning in earlier and more progressively as he balances the car in the brakes, Bottas leaving it later and trying to whip it in in one move. Both working OK.
The rear snapped on Alonso on turn in, leading to a big rear end moment at the exit of 13.
The rear snapped on Alonso on turn in, leading to a big rear end moment at the exit of 13.
Alonso's jumped to seventh in his McLaren. He's on ultra-soft tyres and 1.5s off Bottas's pace.
Verstappen's switched to super-softs and promptly improves to third, just a tenth slower than the ultra-soft-shod Hamilton and half a second slower than pacesetter Bottas.
Crash
Spin for Gelael at Turn 5, but he continues. Had just complained over the radio about some kind of recharge issue.
Hamilton improves, but he's still four tenths slower than Bottas.
No running for Hartley at the moment, he's stood in the garage watching the TV coverage.
Further improvements for the Renaults of Hulkenberg and Sainz, they are sixth and seventh.
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Edd Straw
Hulkenberg was all over the place on his second run. Suspect he did not have the tyres switched on as he was struggling to keep the car in line through Turns 13 and 14
Hamilton was way too hot into Turn 13 and didn't even attempt to take the apex. Very fine margins on the approach here.
Hamilton was way too hot into Turn 13 and didn't even attempt to take the apex. Very fine margins on the approach here.
Hamilton improves on ultra-softs but it's not a good final sector and he's 0.8s slower than Bottas. Still goes P2 for now with a 1m18.613s.
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Raikkonen's improved to a 1m19.124s on super-softs. That moves him up to third. Hulkenberg's seventh on a 1m20.244s, set on ultra-soft tyres.
Crash
Honda engine change required for Vandoorne: "We detected a potential issue in Stoffel’s PU data. We will change his PU for further investigation but no penalties are expected. We are going to use a spare PU, which is spec 3.7.”
This is the moment Hartley briefly stopped on track in the Toro Rosso. He got back to the pits but we've not seen him since. Photo: LAT
Raikkonen and Hulkenberg join Bottas on track.
Stopwatch
Ultra-softs, not super-softs, on Bottas's car (we were looking at the wrong bit of the screen). He's used them to great effect and gone quickest of all on a 1m17.824s – exactly one second faster than Vettel.
By: Geoff Creighton
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