FP2: Leclerc sets the pace from Antonelli and Verstappen in second practice at United States Grand Prix

Charles Leclerc ended Friday’s running at the United States Grand Prix as the fastest driver on track, beating Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen to the top spot in FP2.

After the Ferrari man went marginally quicker than Verstappen in the first hour of practice, the racers had another opportunity to get to grips with the Circuit of The Americas under the Texas sun.

The light at the end of the pit lane turned green at 1600 local time and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly led a queue of cars onto the track, with Sergio Perez returning to his Cadillac following Colton Herta’s FP1 appearance.

Verstappen continued his strong form from earlier in the day by setting a benchmark of 1m 36.581s on the medium tyres. Meanwhile, his Red Bull team mate Isack Hadjar reported that he was unable to “close the visor properly” which distracted him on his early laps.

Lewis Hamilton completed his first effort on the hard compound and wound up nearly seven-tenths adrift of Verstappen, but his time was quickly deleted after he exceeded track limits.

He wasn’t the only one who was struggling to stay within the white lines – Hadjar and Antonelli’s laps were also discounted, with the Italian simultaneously complaining about issues with his seat.

While he elected to return to the garage, others began to challenge Verstappen’s opening lap, and it was George Russell who succeeded in snatching P1 on the timesheets with an advantage of three-tenths over McLaren’s Lando Norris.

It didn’t take long for the Dutchman to reclaim the position, but Norris’ attempt to displace him ended with a snap of oversteer that forced him to abandon his lap, leaving him in third place before he peeled into the pits.

As the traffic quietened down, Antonelli improved to P3 behind Russell, who was under investigation for forcing Leclerc off the track and had previously been shown the black and white flag for the incident – the stewards later ruled that no further action was required.

The majority ventured back out onto the circuit for their Qualifying simulation runs on the red-walled soft tyres, which saw Leclerc move into first place whilst track limits once again punished some of his competitors, including Russell and Hadjar.

The Frenchman wasn’t best pleased with his RB22, labelling it “disgusting” as he started to suffer with degradation, but plenty of others were enduring a messy session too – Norris locked up and veered off the track, and Russell suffered a scary moment on another flying lap.

Heading into the final 20 minutes, teams switched their attention to long runs in order to round out their Friday programmes, theoretically sealing Leclerc’s slim advantage over Antonelli in the order.

Indeed, once the chequered flag fell, the Ferrari driver remained unbeaten as Antonelli found himself just 0.042s further back in P2, leading Verstappen, Hamilton and Russell.

Liam Lawson placed an admirable sixth for Racing Bulls ahead of the McLaren duo of Norris and Oscar Piastri – neither of whom were happy with the handling of their cars – while Hadjar and Haas driver Ollie Bearman completed the top 10.

Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto claimed P11 from Gasly, Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls), Esteban Ocon (Haas), the second Alpine of Franco Colapinto, Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, Nico Hulkenberg (Audi), Valtteri Bottas (Cadillac), Carlos Sainz (Williams), Perez (Cadillac) and Alex Albon (Williams).

With two hours of track action under their belts, the teams and drivers will take the evening to review their learnings ahead of Free Practice 3 on Saturday at 1230 local time, followed by Qualifying at 1600.