Max Verstappen led the sole practice session at the Circuit of The Americas ahead of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton heading into qualifying this afternoon for the United States Grand Prix.
The sprint weekend format meant the single hour of free practice was busy on track, with teams attempting to cram a usual weekend’s 180 minutes of practice into a single session.
All three tire compounds featured over the 60 minutes, but it wasn’t until the final 10 minutes that most drivers switched to soft rubber for qualifying simulation laps just a few hours out from the grid-setting session.
Newly crowned world champion Verstappen rocketed immediately to top spot with a best lap of 1m35.912s. Leclerc came close to matching the time with a lap that began with the fastest first sector of the day, but he lost touch over the final two splits to end up 0.156s off the pace.
Hamilton made it three different constructors in the top three at 0.281s adrift. The Briton was fastest in the middle sector, which is dominated by the long back straight, but shipped time to the leader through the slower corners of the final split.
Sergio Perez was 0.3s slower than teammate Verstappen to finish the session fourth.
The Haas team had a heartening opening session at its home grand prix, with Kevin Magnussen taking his heavily upgraded VF-23 to fifth and 0.56s off the pace. Teammate Nico Hulkenberg was 0.2s further back in ninth.
Sandwiched between them were George Russell, Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz.
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Pierre Gasly rounded out the top 10 as the lowest-placed driver within a second of the leader, his best lap clocking in at 0.793s down.
American rookie Logan Sargeant finished 11th ahead of Esteban Ocon and AlphaTauri duo Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo.
Lando Norris was the best-placed McLaren in 15th, but neither he nor teammate Oscar Piastri, who finished 19th, used the soft tire in the session. Instead the team’s session highlight was Piastri’s spectacular save from near disaster at Turns 8 and 9 during his medium tire run.
The Australian clipped the tall orange apex curb on the inside of Turn 8, which send him sliding out of control over the curbs at the exit of Turn 9. His car slipped onto the grass, where six big snaps threatened to send him spinning into the barriers, but Piastri managed to keep hold of his machine to rejoin the circuit unscathed.
Alfa Romeo teammates Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas finished 16th and 17th.
Fernando Alonso ranked 18th after both he and Aston Martin teammate Lance Stroll suffered brake overheating problems after completing just five laps apiece, just over 10 minutes into the session. Mechanics frantically worked on the front discs and calipers, with the team explaining that both cars were experiencing extremely high front temperatures.
Alonso lost around 25 minutes in pit lane before being sent back out, but Stroll was unable to rejoin, with his left-front corner requiring additional work. It leaves the Canadian last in the order and on the back foot on a weekend comprising only this practice session before qualifying later today.
