UNITED STATES GP – Valtteri Bottas leads Mercedes one-two in first practice
Valtteri Bottas lead a Mercedes one-two after going four hundredths faster than Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton in first practice for the United States Grand Prix. The Finn set a 34.874 on the soft tyre at the time going two tenths faster than his teammate, Hamilton then improved to two tenths and eventually four hundredths off.
Mercedes are expected to have a slight edge over Red Bull this weekend at this high-speed Circuit of the Americas near the Texan capital Austin. Max Verstappen was nine-tenths off both the Mercedes going third fastest and half a second faster than both Ferrari’s of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.
Leclerc did lose the rear of his Ferrari through Turn Five, similar to Maggots and Becketts, in a bump first sector but did manage to go two tenths faster than his teammate Sainz. However, both appeared to struggled through the first high-speed sector appearing to be the cause of the oversteer.
Mercedes was expected to have a slight edge based on recent performance, the size of their advantage suggests there must be an offset in engine mode or fuel load at play in the times, as the gap seems too big to be representative.
Bottas along with George Russell and Sebastian Vettel will take grid penalties for engine compound changes. The William and Aston Martin drivers have taken more components – a turbo and MGU-H as well as the ICE – and they will start from the back of the grid as a result.
Pierre Gasly put his Alpha Tauri sixth fastest, the Frenchman going two and a half tenths faster than the Red Bull of Sergio Perez. The Mexican’s time was 36.7, but his fastest lap would have put him fourth behind Verstappen, but it was deleted after he exceeded track limits at Turn Nine.
Perez has also been placed under investigation following contact with Mick Schumacher at Turn Twelve, they made contact as the Red Bull tried to pass the German who bounced into the run-off. Perez called Schumacher an “idiot”, saying that he was “not looking in his mirrors”.
McLaren’s Lando Norris was eighth fastest almost two seconds off, but the Englishman’s hopes of improving on his final run saw him lock up and flat-spotted his tyres. Its likely that McLaren is a lot closer to Ferrari, having had similar pace at this type of circuits earlier in the season.
The two Alfa Romeo’s rounded out the top ten, with Antonio Giovinazzi going nine hundredths faster than teammate Kimi Raikkonen. George Russell looked decent having run seventh at one stage, but the Williams driver was shuffled down to twelfth two seconds off the pace.
Esteban Ocon was twelfth fastest, he was forced to do most of the running for Alpine after his teammate Fernando Alonso spent a lot of time in the garage. A loss of fluid saw him stop on track but managed to get back out in the closing moments of the session
Alonso finishing behind the two Aston Martin’s, with Lance Stroll going nine hundredths faster than his teammate Sebastian Vettel. Daniel Ricciardo was six tenths slower than his teammate Norris, Nicolas Latifi also struggled to match his teammate going seventeenth.
Yuki Tsunoda was eighteenth going nine tenths faster than Schumacher, while Nikita Mazepin was twentieth over three seconds behind his teammate.