Practice report
Formula 1 United States GP
United States GP: Hamilton outpaces Verstappen in FP2
Lewis Hamilton completed a clean sweep of Formula 1 Friday practice ahead of the United States Grand Prix by setting the pace in the second session.
Edd Straw
Edited: Oct 20, 2017, 8:46 PM
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The Mercedes driver, who also topped the morning session, outpaced Red Bull driver Max Verstappen by 0.397s to secure top spot with a lap of 1m34.668s.
Hamilton was only third fastest after the first runs in the session. During that phase, Daniel Ricciardo used supersofts to set the pace ahead of Verstappen, who like Hamilton used softs early on.
Hamilton had a brief off-track moment at the penultimate corner during that run, but made no mistake when he returned to the track on ultrasofts as he went quickest after 35 minutes.
By that stage, Valtteri Bottas had already knocked Ricciardo off top spot. But the Mercedes driver ultimately had to settle for fourth fastest, just under a tenth slower than Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel.
Vettel survived a spin shortly before the 20-minute mark when the rear snapped away on turn-in to the penultimate corner.
Although he ended up in the gravel, Vettel was able to dig himself out and recover to the pits before returning for his performance run shortly before the halfway mark of the 90-minute session.
He later complained of a potential problem with the front axle, which he described as feeling "a bit like jelly", contributing to him completing only 11 laps.
Ricciardo improved his first-run time by almost seven tenths after switching to the ultra softs, but it was only good enough for fifth ahead of Kimi Raikkonen.
Fernando Alonso was best-of-the rest in seventh place, having briefly been as high as fourth thanks to putting in his quick lap in earlier than most.
Williams driver Felipe Massa was eighth, with Force India pairing Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon rounding out the top 10 – with the trio separated by just three hundredths of a second.
Renault debutant Carlos Sainz was the penultimate driver to complete his performance run on ultrasofts, taking 11th shortly before the one-hour mark.
The last driver to do so was teammate Nico Hulkenberg, who suffered an engine glitch that kept him in the garage after his first run and only posted his time just inside the final 20 minutes.
Daniil Kvyat, who sat out the first session to allow Sean Gelael some mileage despite this being the Russian's first time in the Toro Rosso since September's Singapore Grand Prix, was 13th fastest.
Kevin Magnussen, who had a high-speed spin early in the session, was the best of the Haas-Ferraris in 14th.
Stoffel Vandoorne and Lance Stroll were 15th and 16th ahead of F1 debutant Brendon Hartley, who improved several times on his ultrasofts to end his first day in grand prix racing 17th fastest.
Pascal Wehrlein missed the first session, with Charles Leclerc taking his seat, but recovered well to post 18th-fastest time.
Sauber's Marcus Ericsson and Haas driver Romain Grosjean brought up the rear.
Pos Driver Car/Engine Time Gap Laps 1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1'34.668 26 2 Max Verstappen Red Bull/TAG Heuer 1'35.065 0.397 30 3 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1'35.192 0.524 11 4 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1'35.279 0.611 39 5 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull/TAG Heuer 1'35.463 0.795 24 6 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1'35.514 0.846 29 7 Fernando Alonso McLaren/Honda 1'36.304 1.636 28 8 Felipe Massa Williams/Mercedes 1'36.460 1.792 30 9 Sergio Perez Force India/Mercedes 1'36.481 1.813 28 10 Esteban Ocon Force India/Mercedes 1'36.490 1.822 34 11 Carlos Sainz Renault 1'36.529 1.861 30 12 Nico Hülkenberg Renault 1'36.534 1.866 18 13 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso/Renault 1'36.761 2.093 40 14 Kevin Magnussen Haas/Ferrari 1'37.285 2.617 17 15 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren/Honda 1'37.463 2.795 31 16 Lance Stroll Williams/Mercedes 1'37.788 3.120 27 17 Brendon Hartley Toro Rosso/Renault 1'37.987 3.319 41 18 Pascal Wehrlein Sauber/Ferrari 1'38.165 3.497 35 19 Marcus Ericsson Sauber/Ferrari 1'38.262 3.594 22 20 Romain Grosjean Haas/Ferrari 1'38.387 3.719 26
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