F1 Grand Prix practice results: Bottas, Perez fastest in Austin

Bottas set the quickest time of the day in FP1, which was fractionally faster than Red Bull’s Sergio Perez managed when he topped FP2 later in the afternoon.

US Grand Prix FP1 results: Bottas fastest from Hamilton

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	km/h
1	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	17	1'34.874			209.191
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	18	1'34.919	0.045	0.045	209.091
3	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	16	1'35.806	0.932	0.887	207.156
4	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	18	1'36.334	1.460	0.528	206.020
5	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Ferrari	20	1'36.508	1.634	0.174	205.649
6	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	18	1'36.611	1.737	0.103	205.430
7	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	20	1'36.798	1.924	0.187	205.033
8	Lando Norris	McLaren	11	1'36.855	1.981	0.057	204.912
9	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	18	1'36.874	2.000	0.019	204.872
10	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo	18	1'36.876	2.002	0.002	204.868
11	George Russell	Williams	19	1'36.966	2.092	0.090	204.677
12	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	22	1'36.970	2.096	0.004	204.669
13	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	20	1'36.972	2.098	0.002	204.665
14	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	20	1'36.982	2.108	0.010	204.644
15	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	12	1'37.068	2.194	0.086	204.462
16	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	18	1'37.458	2.584	0.390	203.644
17	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	19	1'37.463	2.589	0.005	203.634
18	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	22	1'37.954	3.080	0.491	202.613
19	Mick Schumacher	Haas	17	1'38.866	3.992	0.912	200.744
20	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	19	1'42.239	7.365	3.373	194.121
View full results

What happened in Free Practice 1?

Following an early red flag for Fernando Alonso’s Alpine grinding to a halt at the end of the back straight, Lewis Hamilton set the early pace for Mercedes at 1m36.812s on the soft tyre, 0.043s quicker than Lando Norris (McLaren) with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen a couple of tenths further back.

Perez briefly went fastest by 0.014s on the hard tyre before Hamilton improved again – still running his first set of softs – to 1m36.381s.

Verstappen took over at the top with 1m36.049s before Hamilton produced 1m35.096s and then Bottas set the quickest lap of the session of 1m34.874s. Hamilton improved to within 0.045s of Bottas’s time, while Verstappen also went faster but was still 0.9s off the Mercedes pace.

Charles Leclerc spun his Ferrari at high speed at the Esses but kept it out of the wall. He recovered to finish fourth fastest, 1.46s off the pace, ahead of teammate Carlos Sainz.

Kimi Raikkonen spun his Alfa Romeo in the closing moments at Turn 9.

US Grand Prix FP2 results: Perez fastest from Norris

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	km/h
1	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	24	1'34.946			209.032
2	Lando Norris	McLaren	20	1'35.203	0.257	0.257	208.468
3	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	22	1'35.310	0.364	0.107	208.234
4	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	24	1'35.360	0.414	0.050	208.125
5	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	21	1'35.457	0.511	0.097	207.913
6	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	25	1'35.561	0.615	0.104	207.687
7	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	23	1'35.572	0.626	0.011	207.663
8	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	23	1'35.824	0.878	0.252	207.117
9	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Ferrari	24	1'35.919	0.973	0.095	206.912
10	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	26	1'36.138	1.192	0.219	206.440
11	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	23	1'36.158	1.212	0.020	206.397
12	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	25	1'36.242	1.296	0.084	206.217
13	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	18	1'36.376	1.430	0.134	205.930
14	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo	25	1'36.558	1.612	0.182	205.542
15	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	30	1'36.718	1.772	0.160	205.202
16	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	24	1'36.983	2.037	0.265	204.642
17	Mick Schumacher	Haas	24	1'37.041	2.095	0.058	204.519
18	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	26	1'37.254	2.308	0.213	204.071
19	George Russell	Williams	21	1'37.490	2.544	0.236	203.577
20	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	23	1'38.026	3.080	0.536	202.464
View full results

What happened in Free Practice 2?

In FP2, Perez set the initial pace on medium tyres, 0.004s ahead of Bottas, Verstappen and Hamilton.

While Bottas and Perez swapped the fastest time between them, Verstappen and Hamilton raced side by side around the final corner and along the start/finish straight. “Stupid idiot,” said Verstappen on team radio, and gave his title rival the middle finger gesture.  

Teams then switched to soft tyre running, with Hamilton lapping in 1m34.842s – which would have been the quickest of the day – but his time was deleted for exceeding track limits at Turn 19.

Perez then produced 1m34.946s to top the session, a quarter of a second ahead of Norris. Hamilton was only able to lap third quickest on his second run, while Verstappen repeatedly got caught in traffic and angrily bailed out completely on his qualifying simulation.

Bottas was fourth in this session, 0.414s off the pace, ahead of Ricciardo.

Alonso suffered a late spin at Turn 19 and tapped the wall.