Lewis Hamilton led a one-two for Mercedes in a wet first practice session at the Circuit of the Americas.
The session began on a wet track which never dried sufficiently for anything other than intermediate tyres to be the compound of choice for setting lap times.
The Red Bull pair set the pace initially while the track was at its wettest, before Valtteri Bottas hit the track and lowered the best time to a 1’48.806.The session was interrupted briefly after Charles Leclerc spun off at turn eight. The Sauber driver, whose start to the session had been delayed while the Sauber team worked on a problem with his car, dragged a considerable amount of gravel onto the track as he rejoined, and practice was temporarily red-flagged so it could be cleared away.
When the session resumed Hamilton took to the track for his first significant run and quickly lowered the best time by 1.3 seconds. The Ferrari drivers couldn’t get close: indeed, Sebastian Vettel’s best effort left him behind the second of the Red Bulls.
Carlos Sainz Jnr led the remaining runners, seven-tenths of a second off Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari. The rest of the top 10 was filled by Ferrari-powered cars: Romain Grosjean’s Haas and the Sauber pair, led by Leclerc.
The two McLarens narrowly missed out on the top 10. Fernando Alonso was just two-hundredths of a second away and test driver Lando Norris, substituting for Stoffel Vandoorne, was within two-tenths of a second off his team mate.
The only other test driver in the session fared less well. Toro Rosso’s Sean Gelael gradually got closer to the pace but ended up eight-tenths of a second off the next-slowest car and 1.4 seconds slower than Pierre Gasly. The latter ran a new engine and will take a grid penalty for Sunday’s race.
Nicholas Latifi was scheduled to run for Force India but the team made a last-minute decision to use their regular driver line-up of Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon instead.
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Pos. | No. | Driver | Car | Best lap | Gap | Laps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1’47.502 | 6 | |
2 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes | 1’48.806 | 1.304 | 7 |
3 | 33 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull-TAG Heuer | 1’48.847 | 1.345 | 9 |
4 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull-TAG Heuer | 1’49.326 | 1.824 | 9 |
5 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 1’49.489 | 1.987 | 18 |
6 | 7 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 1’49.928 | 2.426 | 20 |
7 | 55 | Carlos Sainz Jnr | Renault | 1’50.665 | 3.163 | 8 |
8 | 8 | Romain Grosjean | Haas-Ferrari | 1’50.821 | 3.319 | 10 |
9 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’50.961 | 3.459 | 14 |
10 | 9 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber-Ferrari | 1’51.016 | 3.514 | 14 |
11 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren-Renault | 1’51.036 | 3.534 | 9 |
12 | 47 | Lando Norris | McLaren-Renault | 1’51.232 | 3.730 | 9 |
13 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | Toro Rosso-Honda | 1’51.234 | 3.732 | 19 |
14 | 11 | Sergio Perez | Force India-Mercedes | 1’51.459 | 3.957 | 18 |
15 | 35 | Sergey Sirotkin | Williams-Mercedes | 1’51.589 | 4.087 | 14 |
16 | 20 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas-Ferrari | 1’51.614 | 4.112 | 15 |
17 | 31 | Esteban Ocon | Force India-Mercedes | 1’51.655 | 4.153 | 17 |
18 | 27 | Nico Hulkenberg | Renault | 1’51.717 | 4.215 | 7 |
19 | 18 | Lance Stroll | Williams-Mercedes | 1’51.896 | 4.394 | 14 |
20 | 38 | Sean Gelael | Toro Rosso-Honda | 1’52.625 | 5.123 | 21 |
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First practice visual gaps
Lewis Hamilton – 1’47.502
+1.304 Valtteri Bottas – 1’48.806
+1.345 Max Verstappen – 1’48.847
+1.824 Daniel Ricciardo – 1’49.326
+1.987 Sebastian Vettel – 1’49.489
+2.426 Kimi Raikkonen – 1’49.928
+3.163 Carlos Sainz Jnr – 1’50.665
+3.319 Romain Grosjean – 1’50.821
+3.459 Charles Leclerc – 1’50.961
+3.514 Marcus Ericsson – 1’51.016
+3.534 Fernando Alonso – 1’51.036
+3.730 Lando Norris – 1’51.232
+3.732 Pierre Gasly – 1’51.234
+3.957 Sergio Perez – 1’51.459
+4.087 Sergey Sirotkin – 1’51.589
+4.112 Kevin Magnussen – 1’51.614
+4.153 Esteban Ocon – 1’51.655
+4.215 Nico Hulkenberg – 1’51.717
+4.394 Lance Stroll – 1’51.896
+5.123 Sean Gelael – 1’52.625
Drivers more then ten seconds off the pace omitted.
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2018 United States Grand Prix
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Jere (@jerejj)
19th October 2018, 17:44
Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to move this race to June to form a double-header with the Canadian GP after all.
pastaman (@)
19th October 2018, 17:55
Why? Because of a little rain?
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
19th October 2018, 18:15
Tell that to 2015!
Also, pairing with Montreal is just as logical considering how the promoter complained about Mexico being too close on the calendar.
Jere (@jerejj)
19th October 2018, 19:09
@pastaman @eurobrun I was, of course, just being sarcastic. June is, in fact, one of the worst months to hold an outdoor event in Austin (or more or less anywhere in TX for that matter) temperature-wise as the historical average high of that month there is 33.4 degrees Celcius, so no way it’d actually be a wise idea to move COTA to that time of year. Only really the back-end of the season (where it’s now and has always been so far) and or the early-season are suitable temperature-wise.
Lancer033 (@lancer033)
19th October 2018, 19:02
I can promise you that June in Texas is not a good idea.
Jere (@jerejj)
19th October 2018, 19:11
@lancer033 Indeed, and that’s what I just explained to @pastaman @eurobrun above, LOL.
erikje
19th October 2018, 20:03
They survive Singapore.. hot an humid, so TX would be no real problem.
Chaitanya
19th October 2018, 17:45
Not looking good for any Silver arrow competitors if the weather stays the same.
Prvn
19th October 2018, 17:56
In first part of the season everyone used to skip wet sessions… But now they realizing they lost major opportunities in wet perfo development
Tom
19th October 2018, 18:16
Thats hard to say for sure @prvn
A lot of race weekends have started wet with more chance of a dry race and qualifying in which case the teams learn very little from a wet Friday. Here, the conditions are expected to be the same tomorrow and possibly Sunday. With that in mind, it’s important to use the wet practice time to set up for qualifying.
Richard Gibson
19th October 2018, 18:19
1.3 seconds is a huge gap to your team mate
koddamn (@gufdamm)
19th October 2018, 18:38
Bottas lost his fast lap to the red flag. He was going purple on lewis’ time.
Ed Marques (@edmarques)
19th October 2018, 18:45
Nope, he was purple on his own time. Lewis set his after the red flag.
HUHHII (@huhhii)
19th October 2018, 18:43
Not really in changeable conditions when the times were set in different times.
Panagiotis Papatheodorou (@panagiotism-papatheodorou)
19th October 2018, 18:53
I don’t think anyone pushed to see clear times in wet.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
19th October 2018, 19:53
yea and i think it is a silly thing to judge anyway. I’m sure there was a practice session sometime this or last year where Bottas was over a second faster then Hamilton. We just can’t judge these to be realistic.
Jason Blankenship (@jblank)
19th October 2018, 19:47
Gonna be another boring Merc dominant weekend
Green Flag (@greenflag)
19th October 2018, 23:04
I enjoy watching the world’s best sports men and women winning, and breaking and making records. Like watching Tiger win golf tournaments and Roger and Serena in tennis. So I’m happy for Lewis to win the majority of his races until he retires, hopefully after his eighth WDC.
Esploratore (@esploratore)
20th October 2018, 2:49
Hopefully not, he has nothing on schumacher.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
19th October 2018, 21:09
Given that the Saubers both did a reasonable amount of laps, and given that Ericsosn is often rated as a very poor wet driver, i think this is also Leclerc’s weakness. Ericsson beat him in the one wet qualifying we had, and solidly outperformed him when the rain came in Germany. And here, Ericsson is very close and i think the reason may be that Leclerc just can’t yet perform that well in the rain. I know it is only practice, but it has shown in other sessions this year.
I think Leclerc is initially going to really struggle against vettel. And I’d say by a bigger margin than Bottas did against Hamilton in his first season. At least Bottas had been in F1 for 4 seasons before moving up to a top team. I do think he will be better than Kimi, but that won’t show instantly IMO.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
19th October 2018, 21:15
hehe, poor wet driver sounds a bit wrong :D i mean poor wet weather driver regarding Ericsson, which generally i think he is.