Lewis Hamilton started the Mexican Grand Prix the best way possible by dominating the FP1 session while Nico Rosberg was only seventh. Both Ferrari stood behind the Mercedes.
Kevin Magnussen was the first to head out on track in a very fresh atmosphere with only 12°c in the air. Pascal Wehrlein discovered the track with the Halo like Sergio Perez.
The cold weather and the dust on track had drivers waiting for their first real laps. Twenty minutes into the session, only Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon had set times. A few moments later, Magnussen went on track with the Halo just before Felipe Nasr who destroyed his front wing on a kerb, involving a red flag with 56 minutes to go.
The session started again after eight minutes of break. On the timesheet, Hamilton was leading from Rosberg and Perez. Verstappen suffered from overheating problems on the brakes which had him stuck in the garage. Hamilton managed to improve his time on soft with medium tyres.
With fifteen minutes to go, both Ferrari went behind Hamilton’s Mercedes while Rosberg seemed to be struggling with his set-ups and with his tyres. In the very last minutes, some drops of rain appeared in the last part of the circuit.
With a 1:20.914 laptime, Lewis Hamilton finished in the lead ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen. Perez, Hulkenberg, Bottas, Rosberg, Ricciardo, Massa and Kvyat completed the top 10.