17/10/2025 20:38
Lando Norris set a blistering pace in the sole practice session for
the United States Grand Prix. It was an hour-long session at the
Circuit of the Americas in Austin that was curtailed by five
minutes, due to a red flag after 20 minutes, after Lance Stroll ran
very wide through T19, leading to a piece of debris flying off the
back of his Aston Martin. Norris posted a time of 1:32.294s,
finishing 0.255s clear of a surprise second quickest in Sauber's
Nico Hulkenberg. Championship leader Oscar Piastri had to settle
for third, 0.279s adrift of his McLaren team-mate. For Norris, he
awaits his fate after both he, Piastri and McLaren CEO Zak Brown
confirmed there would be "repercussions" for the British driver
after he collided with the Australian in the early stages of the
last race in Singapore. Norris' lap was just over three-tenths of a
second faster than last year's leading practice time, posted by
Carlos Sainz, who was then with Williams. Until the red flag after
20 minutes, the time before then had been dominated by hard-tyre
running. There were numerous exchanges of the leading time, which
for a short period saw Red Bull's Max Verstappen lead the way with
a 1:35.426s before Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton comfortably slashed
0.569s off that to move top, with George Russell, in his Mercedes,
third at that stage, seven-tenths of a second adrift. It was during
the five-minute break that Sainz was forced to step out of his
Williams due to a gearbox problem that ended his session, placing
him on the back foot going into sprint qualifying, a complete
contrast to a year ago. Upon the resumption, Norris managed to
split Hamilton and Verstappen, albeit he was still 0.540s behind
his fellow Briton. It was the only major move as the teams and
drivers opted to focus on higher-fuel running, continuing on the
hard tyres. With 10 minutes remaining, it was time for the low-fuel
qualifying sessions, with the drivers split between softs and
mediums, the latter being used as that compound is mandatory for
the first and second sprint qualifying outings. Although Russell
became the first driver to go quicker than Hamilton by three-tenths
of a second, using the mediums, it was a time that did not last
long. On softs, Alonso performed superbly to post a 1:33.639s, only
for Norris to slice 0.345s off that time. After Piastri moved
second, with a McLaren one-two on the cards, Hulkenberg remarkably
split the duo, arguably running a better engine mode than those
around him. more follows
