DodoFinance Breaking News Made For You!
Max Verstappen set the seventh fastest time in the second free practice of the United States Grand Prix. The session at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin (Texas) lasted 1h30, half an hour longer than usual, and was used to test the new tires for next year. Times didn’t really matter.
Charles Leclerc set the best time for the Ferrari on normal tires with 1m36.810s. Verstappen conceded more than 2.7 seconds on the prototype Pirelli tyres. Earlier in the day, the Dutchman had set the second fastest time in the first training session. He was then 0.224 seconds slower than Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz. Saturday is the third practice, after which qualifying for Sunday’s race begins at midnight Dutch time. It will start at 9 p.m.
The tire test was actually supposed to take place in Japan two weeks ago. Because it was raining, Pirelli decided to move the 1.5 hour test to Texas. Each rider received two sets of tires, of which it was unclear which types were involved. “You see black tires with no color on the side, so we’re going to test ‘blind’,” Pirelli manager Mario Isola told Viaplay ahead of the session. Drivers who skipped early practice, including Leclerc, were also allowed to use the regular tires to prepare for qualifying and the race.
Verstappen immediately took to the track with the test tires under his Red Bull car. After about three-quarters of an hour, his program was over. The Dutchman, who had already secured a title extension in Formula 1, then had a chat with Brad Pitt in the Red Bull pit. The American actor is working with producer Jerry Bruckheimer on a film about Formula 1.
According to Isola, Pirelli is trying to introduce a slightly tougher tire for next year. “Drivers are complaining about understeer in some corners. We made the front tire a bit tougher to avoid this. We want to achieve a mix of strategies in the races: some teams will opt for a pit stop, others for two. This makes it more interesting for the spectators.”
The tire test was definitely not. Apart from an altercation between former world champions Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, who was briefly held up by the Briton and told the radio that Hamilton apparently had no mirrors on his car, nothing surprising happened . The pilots mainly fulfilled their mission to provide Pirelli with the necessary tire data.
