Source : @F1
AUSTIN — Charles Leclerc ended Friday at the United States Grand Prix as the fastest man in Texas, topping second practice ahead of title contender Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen after also leading the opening session.
Formula 1 announced the result on X, saying: “Charles Leclerc ended Friday’s running in P1, beating Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen to the top spot in Second Practice 😮💨”. The post links to the sport’s FP2 report and uses the hashtags #F1 and #USGP.
The Ferrari driver set a 1:35.291 on the soft tyres at the Circuit of The Americas. Antonelli’s Mercedes was 0.042s adrift, with Verstappen third, 0.189s back. Lewis Hamilton was fourth in the second Ferrari, 0.615s off, and George Russell was fifth, 0.744s behind the leader. Liam Lawson was a creditable sixth for Racing Bulls, ahead of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri for McLaren, then Isack Hadjar and Haas driver Ollie Bearman to complete the top ten.
It was a second P1 of the day for Leclerc. In FP1 he had led with a 1:36.052, 0.084s clear of Verstappen, with Norris third. Verstappen had briefly gone faster in that session, but his lap was deleted for track limits at Turn 19. Russell was fourth, Antonelli fifth and Hamilton sixth, while Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto was an eye-catching eighth.
The session began at 4pm local time, with Alpine’s Pierre Gasly leading the queue out of the pit lane and Sergio Perez returning to his Cadillac after Colton Herta drove it in FP1. Verstappen set an early benchmark of 1:36.581 on the medium tyres, before Russell briefly went quickest. Track limits were a recurring problem, with lap times deleted for Hamilton, Hadjar, Antonelli and Russell among others. Antonelli also complained about issues with his seat.
Several drivers had untidy moments. Norris locked up and ran off the track, while Russell suffered a scary snap on another flying lap. Hadjar, who earlier said he was unable to close his visor properly, described his RB22 as “disgusting” as tyre degradation set in. Once the qualifying simulations were done, teams switched to long runs, and Leclerc’s slim advantage over Antonelli held.
The weekend has also brought changes behind the scenes. Ferrari brought upgrades to Austin, while McLaren introduced the first of three consecutive planned updates, although both Norris and Piastri said they were unhappy with the handling of their cars in FP2. At the end of FP1, the FIA also ran a low-grip-mode simulation on the cars as part of its continuing work on power unit software protections.
The result matters because Antonelli can win the world championship in Austin. He needs to win the race with Russell finishing ninth or lower and Hamilton fifth or lower. With Mercedes both second and fifth in FP2, the early evidence is that the title contender is close to the pace-setting Ferrari.
The focus now moves to Saturday. Final practice starts at 12:30 local time, followed by qualifying at 4pm, which is 5am on Sunday in Malaysia. The 56-lap race starts at 3pm local time on Sunday (Oct 25), or 4am on Monday (Oct 26) Malaysian time.
The original Formula 1 post can be viewed on X: https://x.com/F1/status/2113759118255137161.
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