Saint fastest in Ferrari 1-2 in Texas free practice

The 19th racing three days of this year’s Formula 1 championship, in Texas, USA, began with the first period of free practice, the only one the teams had to prepare for tonight’s (19/10. 00:30 Greek time) qualifying tests of of tomorrow’s Sprint race.

Under overcast skies in Austin, the relatively cool temperature of around 26°C and intermittent strong gusts of wind made it quite difficult for the drivers – and there were countless exits and stalls.

For 50 of the 60 minutes of the session almost all drivers were on the track on the hard rubber – with the exception of Bottas who opted for the medium and his Sauber counterpart Chow on the soft – and began consecutive laps to collect C2 tire wear data ahead of Sunday’s race.

At half an hour, at the end of the first set of laps, Leclerc was fastest by 0.25″ from his Ferrari counterpart, Carlos Sainz, and by around half a second from George Russell (Mercedes) and Verstappen.

Then, on the half-hour mark, the two Red Bull drivers were the first of the headliners to take to the track on the soft, and the Dutchman promptly set the fastest lap, despite finding that “the tires were a bit cold at the start of the lap”. stopping the clock at 1:33.855.

Surprisingly the other drivers in the top teams did not spend that time on the soft rubber, but returned – most of them – with the same set of hards, to continue collecting data. Ten minutes later Perez came back with another set of softs but was 0.8 seconds behind Verstappen.

Until the last 10 minutes came. Then all the drivers flocked to the track wearing a set of soft rubber for the simulated Sprint Qualifying tests.

Times began, naturally, to fall for everyone. First Hamilton with his first lap Hamilton was 0.46” behind Verstappen’s first year earlier on the soft tyre. However, Saint soon came and in the Ferrari SF-24, on the same tyres, he reduced the Dutchman’s time by two and a half tenths.

In the next five minutes Alonso moved the Aston up to third, half a second behind Sainz, while Russell aborted his first quick run due to an extensive skid on the exit of turn one – and then his third when he found Franco’s Williams on the perfect line Collapido. In between, the Englishman had stayed eight and a half tenths clear of Saint.

In the exhalation, in the last 2 minutes, Leclerc rose to 2nd place with a difference of only 21mm from his counterpart, Saint, Norris in 4th place approached Verstappen to 13mm and the top six was closed by Piastri and Hamilton by half and a tenth behind Norris respectively.

Remarkably, from Verstappen in 3rd to Alonso – who eventually dropped to 9th – these seven drivers were within two and a half tenths of a second, as the Spaniard remained half a second off the top.

Given that Verstappen’s early time held up well until the end to keep him in 3rd place, and the fact that the Red Bull RB20s were almost 20km/h faster in the very fast turns 3-6 banks, the champions show to be in very good condition this three days.

The opposite is true for Mercedes. Hamilton had a very violent 4-a-ke at very high speed at the entrance to the fast Turn 3, for the Silverstone-inspired set of turns.

The Briton lost control of the Mercedes W15 before doing two violent spins, and in his message to Peter Bonnington he said “thewhen creturn (to pitches) you need to check those damn tires and the floor”.

This was one of many indications of the W15’s balance problems, which – according to Russell – were exacerbated by a low fuel load at the end. Russell himself also had a four-a-ke and then a skid on the exit of Turn 1, as did Hamilton another exit.

Many drivers also had exits by losing their brakes: from Piastri and Norris, to Gasli, Colapinto and Albon.