Daniel Ricciardo has reminded Lewis Hamilton he has a fight on his hands to win the Mexican Grand Prix however inevitable the Mercedes's driver's fourth world championship may be.
Hamilton is on the brink of becoming Britain's first four times world champion but he wants to do it with a victory on Sunday.
He is 66 points clear of Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel and needs only to finish fifth to secure the title with two races to spare, even if the German wins.
The 32-year-old was the meat in a Red Bull sandwich in second practice at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on Friday, however, with Australia's Ricciardo top of the time sheets with a lap of one minute 17.801 seconds.
Hamilton had a big spin and was 0.131 slower with Red Bull's Max Verstappen third, 0.163 off his team mate's time, despite an engine failure with an older power unit.
Vettel was fourth, and also with a hot backside after his car's fire extinguisher went off beneath his seat half an hour into the session.
"On the long runs, I still think we could find a bit more," Ricciardo said.
"On low fuel we are more or less there. Mercedes always have more on Saturday so I think we still need to find a few tenths if we want to stay ahead of them.
"I feel we can be a bit better on race pace and I think we can improve a few things. I think these last three races will be pretty close between the top three teams."
Finland's Valtteri Bottas had been fastest in the sunny morning session with a best lap of 1:17.824 also keeping Hamilton off top. Verstappen and Ricciardo were third and fourth respectively.
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