United States GP: Verstappen heads Vettel in FP1, Hamilton eighth

Verstappen was 0.169s faster than Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel in the first 90-minute session on Friday, with Alex Albon backing up his Red Bull teammate in third.

Red Bull showed table-topping pace throughout, with Albon quickest at the halfway stage on a 1m35.282s before times tumbled as the track improved and teams switched to the soft tyre.

After dropping Pirelli's development 2020 tyres for a set of mediums and then softs, Verstappen posted a 1m34.057s.

Vettel's own soft-tyre run yielded a 1m34.236s, with Albon ending up on a 1m34.336s.

As neither Mercedes driver or Charles Leclerc's Ferrari set a representative time, Pierre Gasly ended the session fourth, just under a second slower than Verstappen.

Daniel Ricciardo was fifth for Renault, a shade faster than Romain Grosjean's Haas, with Leclerc only seventh, 1.3s off the pace.

Hamilton, who has regular race engineer Peter Bonnington back alongside him at Austin, ended up a few hundredths shy of Leclerc.

He vaulted into the top 10 with a late soft-tyre run after threatening to end the session 18th.

Lance Stroll was ninth for Racing Point, and Kevin Magnussen completed the top 10 in the second Haas.

Valtteri Bottas was down in 17th in the second Mercedes. He did complete a lengthy stint on softs but spent the rest of his session on development tyres and mediums.

Several drivers complained about bumps around the track and a jump at Turn 9, where there has been a mix of resurfacing and other parts being left alone and deteriorating.

Television replays even showed small parts being thrown off by at least one Haas over the bumps.

Carlos Sainz suffered a major spin through the Esses after losing his McLaren on the bumpy entry to the corner, while many others ran wide and had lap times deleted for track limits.

Williams FP1 stand-in Nicholas Latifi stopped briefly on-track and only completed seven laps after returning to the garage.

Cla	Driver		Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Max Verstappen		Red Bull	26	01'34.057
2	Sebastian Vettel		Ferrari	30	01'34.226	00.169
3	Alex Albon		Red Bull	28	01'34.316	00.259
4	Pierre Gasly		Toro Rosso	32	01'35.008	00.951
5	Daniel Ricciardo		Renault	29	01'35.263	01.206
6	Romain Grosjean		Haas	24	01'35.356	01.299
7	Charles Leclerc		Ferrari	23	01'35.380	01.323
8	Lewis Hamilton		Mercedes	32	01'35.439	01.382
9	Lance Stroll		Racing Point	31	01'35.586	01.529
10	Kevin Magnussen		Haas	23	01'35.659	01.602
11	Daniil Kvyat		Toro Rosso	31	01'35.661	01.604
12	Carlos Sainz Jr.		McLaren	26	01'35.723	01.666
13	Kimi Raikkonen		Alfa Romeo	22	01'35.854	01.797
14	Sergio Perez		Racing Point	29	01'35.971	01.914
15	Antonio Giovinazzi		Alfa Romeo	26	01'36.037	01.980
16	Nico Hulkenberg		Renault	24	01'36.124	02.067
17	Valtteri Bottas		Mercedes	40	01'36.159	02.102
18	Lando Norris		McLaren	23	01'36.263	02.206
19	Robert Kubica		Williams	28	01'37.948	03.891
20	Nicholas Latifi		Williams	7	01'41.112	07.055
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