Fire extinguisher halts Vettel’s progress

Sebastian Vettel saw his second free practice session stalled by a burst fire extinguisher on his Ferrari in Mexico but is content with the pace he produced from his car.

The Ferrari driver ended FP2 at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez fourth fastest with a best lap of 1m 18.051s to remain within a quarter of a second of pace-setter Daniel Ricciardo for Red Bull.

During an FP2 long run Vettel was given a cold surprise when his fire extinguisher in his Ferrari exploded which prompted him to halt his run to clean up the extinguisher and his racing overalls.

It marks a second consecutive Friday practice which was hampered after he spun off the circuit during FP2 at last week’s United States Grand Prix.

“It was another Friday which didn’t go 100% right as we had the fire extinguisher which burst in the middle of the run,” Vettel said. “Initially it was burning but it turned out to be cold so I had to go back, we changed it but lost some time but we could recover.

“It is a short track but there was a lot of traffic so it wasn’t ideal but let’s see what the others do.”

Despite his issue Vettel is confident his Ferrari can be a match for Red Bull and Mercedes at the Mexico City circuit when he finds a settled balance with his set-up.

“The car was a bit so-so some laps were really good and others were not so good,” he said “I think the car in general is quick but we need to work a little bit more. I don’t think there is an awful lot of work it is more about finding the balance then we can make a good step forward.”