2026 Formula 1 United States GP
F1 United States GP: Follow FP3 at Austin with live timing
Follow along for updates from F1's final practice session of the United States Grand Prix weekend
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Hadjar also has a lock-up as he encounters a Williams at Turn 1. "What was he doing? He was just sleeping on the racing line," he complains, although Albon was trying to stay out of the way.
In frustration, Hadjar seemed to crowd Albon out there.
Antonelli does a clean lap and goes fourth, but it seemed like he was taking it a little bit easy. Verstappen's having another go, but has a lock-up at Turn 15 and calls that lap a day.
Odd one: the car snapped on him and he just lost front-end traction - and he seemed to just boot the throttle in annoyance.
Piastri goes wide at Turn 19, which will mean you know what.
Bearman improves to 14th, while Hadjar went off at Turn 6 or 7, one of those. "Now you have to check the floor - I don't know where my car is," he says, as yesterday's issues seem to be recurring.
Bearman had a big snap at Turn 7 and has to back off in his Godzilla-themed Haas car. That was probably a bit ptero-fying...
Hamilton's doing another lap, but finds Bortoleto at Turn 12 and ends up having to back out of that one. The Audi pair have found themselves a bit in the way today...
"Bortoleto was on the racing line in the braking zone," Hamilton duly reported, and Bortoleto really ought to have got out of the way there.
Norris completes his lap, going fourth, but he'll lose that.
Leclerc crosses the line and gets a 1m34.810s with a very good final sector - but he might have track limits as well. Indeed, he loses that, as did Norris.
Every year, the same thing.
Antonelli went off at Turn 9, hence the track limits. "And you were doing so well..." Pete Bonnington replies.
Hamilton took a different approach with the opening sector, easing off a little bit to save some tyre grip for the final sector - and it's paid off in the low-speed.
Norris is having another go at a lap, but he goes off at Turn 9 - so we can assume the stewards will delete that one.
Norris started a lap, but he's backed out - possibly felt the Audi ahead had cost him a bit of time. Piastri also opens for a lap on some new softs, but he's cost himself a bit of time in the middle sector - and but he still improves to fifth.
Verstappen's done a very quick first sector on some soft tyres too, and posts a 1m35.061s - which is slower than that Antonelli effort, which has been deleted.
Hamilton then sets a 1m34.893s to go quickest.
Antonelli starts another lap with some fresh soft tyres: purple opening sector, purple second sector, and it's a 1m35.015s to go quickest.
Russell goes third quickest, and posts a 1m35.381s.
Colapinto's got himself up to 10th with a soft-tyre run, so Alpine's showing a bit more one-lap pace than yesterday - the team's race runs were good, but it didn't really show too much in terms of ultimate speed.
Hadjar also improved, but by just 0.028s as he stays eighth for the time being.
Ha, right on cue - Russell did have a lap deleted there so he goes behind Piastri.
Leclerc's gone quickest in the first sector, does a personal best middle sector, but the final sector went away from him and he was 0.007s off his best. Old mediums, though.
Hamilton improves his time, but stays second as he gets to within 0.289s of Leclerc.
Russell goes off at Turn 20, so that's ruined that lap, as Hulkenberg and Russell got very close for company with Ocon at Turn 14. Ocon rather had to stamp onto the brakes to evade them.
As it stands, it's Leclerc, Hamilton, Antonelli, Verstappen, Norris, Russell, Piastri, Hadjar, Lawson, and Bearman who complete our top 10. Unless, by the time I press enter, we've had a track limits moment...
Leclerc does a 1m35.127s to go quickest - will he keep hold of that lap? He's gone 0.434s quicker than Hamilton.
Antonelli splits the two Ferraris on the soft tyre, as Verstappen improves slightly but remains fourth. Piastri improves to go sixth.
Leclerc is the only driver so far without a lap on the board, so he's going again - but he missed the apex at Turn 1 and he's gone over the white line. He's backed out.
Hadjar moves up to fifth, 0.397s off the pace - which is an improvement on his previous effort.
A bit of aero paint on Hamilton's car, as Ferrari continues to look at the sidepod updates for this round.
Russell goes third, 0.318s off Hamilton, as Norris attempts to get a clean lap in - he goes third fastest. Meanwhile, Lindblad loses the lap that took him up to eighth.
Verstappen is having his weekly complaint about the downshifts, and a tricky Turn 12 means that he's backed out.
Leclerc went off the track at Turn 12, so that's that lap gone.
Hamilton puts the softs into action, and goes fastest with a 1m35.561s. So, the softs can work here.
Hadjar gets a lap in and goes up to fourth, but he's half a second down on Verstappen.
Never mind, Norris had that lap deleted for a track limits violation at Turn 12. Piastri thus goes quickest with a 1m36.243s, but this lasts for seconds as Verstappen does a 1m35.702s on a set of mediums.
Antonelli only goes third on the softs, losing half a second in the final sector.
Leclerc, on mediums, then goes second quickest - losing a couple of tenths in the middle part of the lap.
Perhaps there's something in the medium compound here.
A pitlane exit violation between Stroll and Hulkenberg has been noted.
Lawson goes quickest with a 1m36.420s on the mediums, but Norris beats that with a 1m36.066s on the soft.
Gasly improves to a 1m36.861s, while Perez has found a 1m38.872s (still on mediums and hards respectively).
Hamilton had a moment in the first sector and lost a bit of time, but gets purple sectors in the next two to set a 1m36.716s and goes quickest. Still, it's not all that quick.
Sainz, also on softs, sets a 1m38.009s, which is even less quick.
12 minutes in, and the circuit's a bit more busy: Sainz, Hamilton, Stroll, Alonso, and Ocon have appeared on-track. Softs for the first two named, mediums for the rest.
Gasly puts together a lap on the mediums, and posts a 1m37.592s to go quickest for the time being.
Bottas, on the hard tyres, does a 1m39.684s - which is about 0.3s off Perez's later improvement to a 1m39.391s.
Gasly and Bottas hit the road now, so a bit more action on-track. George Russell, meanwhile, has a headset on - so I don't think he's going anywhere for a bit.
Most are waiting before going out, as they don't want to use too many sets of tyres.
Sergio Perez opens the session with a 1m39.880s, on the hard tyre. Both Bortoleto and Colapinto are on the road with the medium - or Bortoleto was, but he's gone back into the pits.
Oh, Bortoleto and Colapinto also emerge on the road. Both drivers will have grid penalties for this round: Colapinto takes a 10-place drop for a change of control electronics, Bortoleto takes 20 places for a new battery and new electronics too.
Arvid Lindblad also has a five-place penalty for taking his sixth ICE of the year.
FP3 begins!
It's time - the drivers are free to get rolling. Sergio Perez is the first driver on-track, as the rest of the field take their time to get ready for the session.
Weather watch
It's cloudy out there, still 27C but the track is 'only' at 39C as the cloud cover keeps the circuit relatively cool.
Just a couple of minutes to go until the lights go out - who's going to throw down the gauntlet ahead of qualifying?
“Undriveable” – Hadjar looking for answers after “massive” struggles in Austin practice
It was a day of contrasting fortunes for Red Bull during Friday practice at the Circuit of the Americas.
Verstappen was largely satisfied with the early signs of the RB22, although he stressed that the balance between high-speed and low-speed corners still needed improvement, with technical director Pierre Waché indicating that Red Bull needed to make gains in the slower sections of the track.
Verstappen used the word ‘fine-tuning’, but things are certainly not at that stage on the other side of the garage. Hadjar had a largely positive feeling during FP1, despite finishing 14th in the standings, but decided to explore a slightly different set-up direction for the second session of the day.
“I did [make a lot of changes after FP1]. I was happy-ish with how it went this morning. Afterwards, I thought I was heading in the right direction, but it only brought a lot more problems”, the Frenchman concluded.
“I still felt okay on the medium, even though we changed the car. But on the soft, the car was completely gone for me. It was very difficult to drive, so I need to turn things around tomorrow.
“We need to sit down and see what we can do because the car made a massive step down. We need to bring it back, at least to the level it was this morning.”
Isack Hadjar, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Kym Illman / Getty Images
Antonelli hails Austin FP2 "step forward"
F1 championship leader Kimi Antonelli reckons Mercedes has made another step trying to extract performance from its recent upgrade package at the US Grand Prix.
Mercedes arrived at Austin's challenging Circuit of the Americas with a new front wing option to further complement its significant upgrade package introduced in Malaysia two races ago. The initial upgrade raised the performance ceiling of the car, but also made it more peaky and harder to optimise.
With both Antonelli and George Russell now on the latest specification after splitting packages in Singapore, Mercedes' progress from first to second practice in Austin suggested the W17 is still difficult to get in the right operating window. But when the magic happens there is performance to be found, with Antonelli just 0.042s behind Ferrari's FP2 leader Charles Leclerc on Friday.
"I felt better in the car compared to FP1," Antonelli said. "There is still lots of work to do, but it was a good step forward and now we'll try to improve even further. Having both cars on the same package helps, because we can try lots of different stuff and we can have a better understanding of this package.
"Since Singapore we were able to analyse the data and understand better what this package needs. We're still trying to find how to put the car in the right window, but we've been taking steps forward and we'll see what we can do to improve even more."
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
Photo by: Mark Thompson / Getty Images
Our Friday pace analysis
We've got an early idea of who goes where, but yesterday's flurry of track limits violations (over 200!) did mean that there's still a few questions to answer about the competitive order.
Here's a look at how things stand so far...
Get ready for FP3 at Austin!
Hello again everyone, and welcome back to our live coverage of this weekend's US Grand Prix - and we're just about to gear up for FP3, as the teams get their final chance to try a few set-up options and prepare for qualifying.
As always, we'll take you through the session as it happens...so, stay tuned as the session begins in about 30 minutes!
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
Photo by: Alex Bierens de Haan / LAT Images via Getty Images
