Verstappen pleased with 'positive start' in Mexico

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After trailing his Mercedes rivals in first practice in Mexico City, Red Bull's Max Verstappen finished Friday feeling on top of the world after pulling out a half second lead over the rest of the field.

"It's a positive start to the weekend," he commented after setting the best time of 1:17.301s, which was 0.424s quicker than Valtteri Bottas with Lewis Hamilton nearly a further tenth behind.

"It was quite quite a good day," he told the media in parc ferme afterwards. "Of course [we're] always trying to improve the car, trying to make it feel better.

Read also: Verstappen finds clear air out in front in Mexico City FP2

"The car is working quite well and there are a few things of to look at, but it's pretty good," he insisted. "Of course tomorrow we need to be there as well. We'll look into a lot of things

"In FP1 the track was very dirty, so in FP2 that was already a bit nicer," he commented when asked about the improvement in performance between Friday's two sessions."

While today's outcome looks good for Verstappen and Red Bull heading into the weekend, the driver isn't taking anything for granted this early on.

"It’s always difficult to know how we are going to perform in qualifying after Friday practice," he said. "[But] we have a good feeling as a team heading into the weekend.”

Verstappen comes into the weekend with a 12 point lead over Hamilton in the drivers championship with five races to go, although the situation is reversed in the constructors standings where Mercedes have the lead by 23 points over Red Bull.

It means that the pressure is on Verstappen's team mate Sergio Perez to perform well at his home Grand Prix this weekend. The Mexican was fourth fastest in the afternoon session despite spinning off and damaging the rear wing in FP1.

"We didn’t lose that much progress today despite the shunt," he said. "Other than that incident it was a positive day. I am feeling more comfortable on the long runs than over one lap.

"Tomorrow everything will be even closer, and it will be interesting to see how we all line up."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.