LANDO NORRIS LEADS ONLY FREE PRACTICE SESSION OF THE WEEKEND
Lando Norris was the fastest driver in Friday’s only practice session before the United States Grand Prix. His McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri finished third, while Nico Hulkenberg surprised many by taking second place in his Kick Sauber.
This weekend uses the Sprint format, so teams had just one hour of practice to get their cars ready before Sprint Qualifying later in the day. Because of the short time, almost all drivers went out right away when the session started at 12:30 local time. Most used the hard tyres, while Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll chose the softer medium tyres.
There was a small mix-up on the radio when Isack Hadjar’s engineer mentioned “Bottas,” confusing the rookie by referring to former Sauber driver Valtteri Bottas. Moments later, Hadjar went wide on track and complained about traffic. After about 15 minutes, Max Verstappen was leading with a time of 1:35.426, just ahead of George Russell.
A red flag stopped the session with 40 minutes to go because Stroll had gone off at Turn 19, scattering debris. When the track went green again, Lewis Hamilton took the top spot with a 1:34.857 lap in his Ferrari.
Carlos Sainz had to return to the pits with a suspected gearbox issue, and his Ferrari team started investigating. Esteban Ocon also had a problem, his Haas car went into the gravel after a brake failure.
Hamilton reported that his throttle pedal felt “really slippery,” but he stayed on top of the times for most of the session until the final minutes. As the last 10 minutes approached, several drivers switched to the soft tyres to simulate qualifying laps.
The order kept changing as the track got faster. Alonso briefly went fastest with a 1:33.639, just 0.009 seconds ahead of Verstappen, before Norris took over with a 1:33.294. Hulkenberg then jumped into second, just 0.255 seconds behind Norris, and Piastri took third.
Alonso ended up fourth, followed by Verstappen in fifth. Alex Albon was sixth for Williams, ahead of Russell, Hamilton, Hadjar, and Ollie Bearman in tenth.
Next up is Sprint Qualifying at 4:30 p.m. local time, which will set the grid for Saturday’s first event.
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