F1 United States GP live commentary and updates - FP1
Follow along for updates on F1's sole practice session at this weekend's United States Grand Prix in Austin
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Sprint qualifying coming soon...ish
We'll be under way for sprint qualifying in about 2 hours, 45 minutes - so join us again soon, as we take you through the session!
See you in a bit!
Piastri rises to second as the session draws to a close, so it's a McLaren 1-2 after the soft runs, ahead of Alonso - or at least, it was, as Hulkenberg splits the McLarens with a swift lap at the end of the session.
This brings him above Max Verstappen - "The car just bottoms out, it's way too aggressive," reckons the Red Bull driver.
Norris does indeed go fastest with a 1m33.294s, after recovering from that slower opening sector. Hulkenberg goes up to fourth, 0.6s off Norris' pace.
Both Haas drivers are in the top 10, as is Bortoleto.
Piastri does a session-best middle sector but he's only up to third on softs, as Hamilton goes fourth on the mediums.
Norris starts his lap on softs, but he's 0.22s off Alonso's first-sector effort.
Russell sets a 1m34.675s on the mediums, as Verstappen's on a lap with the softs. He gets a minor tow from Albon, and sets a 1m33.648s.
Tsunoda is second, albeit 0.883s down. Leclerc pits, meanwhile, as he can smell oil - seventh gear was apparently 'not going in'.
Alonso's going quicker and does a 1m33.639s to go top.
Zak Brown on Sky F1 says that the "repercussions" for Norris are "small and won't necessarily be noticed" - so what do we think that is? My guesses are as follows:
- Having to sample Andrea Stella's dodgy baking efforts
- Dirty pint at the end-of-year party
- Having to sing Nessun Dorma in front of everyone at Woking
- Has to do a Lenny Henry-style advert but for Hilton, rather than the Premier Inn
- No red M&Ms in the driver room
Just under 15 minutes to go, and most have darted into the pits at this stage.
Calm before the storm?
"The throttle pedal is really slippery for some reason," Hamilton reports, although it's not causing too much issue as his time remains the fastest.
We're keenly awaiting any soft/medium tyre runs, as we look ahead to the sprint sessions.
Norris moves up to second with a lap 0.540s off Hamilton's best, as McLaren hopes for a stronger weekend here - Baku and Singapore weren't entirely auspicious, and the team hasn't won since Zandvoort.
Top 10 leaderboard after 30 minutes
1. Hamilton
2. Verstappen
3. Russell
4. Piastri
5. Tsunoda
6. Norris
7. Sainz
8. Lawson
9. Leclerc
10. Hulkenberg
Carlos Sainz's car is up on the stands, so he's got an issue. He's eating something out of a flask, so he doesn't look like he's going anywhere in a hurry.
"Potential issue with the gearbox," was told on his return to the pits.
FP1 resumes
Here we go again - just a five-minute layoff. Everyone's stuck to their hard tyres, presumably to string some laps together for the engineers' benefits.
Debris of some description did indeed emerge from the rear of Lance Stroll's Aston Martin, so we've had a red flag to clear that up. We'll get going in a second as it's been cleared up.
Red flag!
...but for who, Chris Kamara? I dunno, Jeff!
It seems that debris is the culprit.
Hamilton goes up to first with a 1m34.857s, 0.569s clear of Verstappen. Ferrari is finding some pace here, after a disappointing pair of races at Baku and Singapore.
Update watch: Esteban Ocon is currently 11th, 0.6s clear of Bearman. Ocon's running the new floor for this one, so Haas will very much hope that some of that delta has been created by the new parts.
Russell goes up to second, splitting the two Red Bulls. Lawson in the VCARB had a good first sector, but he's bailed out of that lap.
Lots of continuous running here on the hards, as the teams seek to get plenty of laps in before they look at sprint qualifying performance.
Hadjar in his tortoiseshell Racing Bulls machine has a little wide moment as he completes a lap, hindered by traffic. I don't mind the idea of the livery, but the splotches of white are a bit of a mismatch.
Verstappen is top again with a 1m35.426s; Tsunoda goes 0.329s behind.
Sainz then sets a 1m36.130s, 0.062s clear of the lap Max Verstappen had set moments before...
...but Norris posts a 1m36.126s to go 0.004s up. Hamilton looked like he was about to rise to the top again, but then only goes fourth.
Hamilton gets a 1m36.666s to secure a devilish fastest lap so far on the hards. Piastri gets up to second in his reliveried McLaren, which has some whitish-grey bits on it.
The renders made the car look like it was in a matte-silver tone - disappointingly, it's off-white.
Sainz gets a 1m37.486s on the hards, in his special-edition Williams - which has a throw-back to the BMW-era cars that the team had run in the early 2000s. Ah, nostalgia...
And we've got a full house on track, as there's just this single session to get some running on the board.
Verstappen opens with a 1m38.797s on the hards, although Lawson then moves ahead by a smidgen.
FP1 begins!
First chance to get a look at the six special liveries - all with varying degrees of effort.
Max Verstappen is out first, followed by Lawson, Bearman, Ocon, Tsunoda, and co.
Tyres for this weekend
We have a split in allocated compounds for this weekend - Pirelli has nominated the C1 as the hard tyre, C3 for the medium, and C4 for soft. This might make things a bit more interesting for the race - and hopefully offer some variance in strategy.
Free practice coming up...
Just five minutes until our sole practice session gets under way. A sprint weekend can tend to set the cat among the pigeons, particularly with ride heights; the bumpiness of the Austin circuit and less time to dial in the set-up can lead to longer-lasting consequences.
Take 2023, for example; Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were both disqualified for excess plank wear - although changes in parc ferme regulations last year means that teams can now raise their cars post-sprint to avoid a similar situation.
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W14, Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-23
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
Verstappen shrugs off McLaren’s papaya rules: You can’t make F1 “100% fair”
Max Verstappen believes McLaren has made things complicated with its pursuit of fairness between its two title-contending drivers, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris
“If you leave the door slightly open like Oscar did in Singapore, then you might end up in a situation like that,” Verstappen said.
“But on the other hand, they kind of created this themselves by trying so hard to make everything equal with certain actions.”
In Verstappen’s view, it’s impossible to manage an F1 title fight, and equally impossible to keep everything fair by intervening from the pit wall.
“A championship is never 100 percent fair when it comes to certain moments. Sometimes you get a bad pit stop, sometimes an engine breaks.
"You can’t really balance that out, I think. They see it differently at McLaren, but this is my opinion. It’s very difficult – and that’s what sometimes leads to frustration.”
F1 partnering with Apple for US broadcast is seismic for the series
The news that Formula 1 has partnered with Apple for the broadcast rights in the US is truly seismic for the series.
This is a critical deal for F1 and its owner, Liberty Media, because growth in the US market is their big bet for the future.
F1 has a market capitalisation today of $24 billion, three times what Liberty paid for it in 2017 and much of that has come from growth in the US. This deal is intended to take revenues and valuation to the next level.
Having all of F1 TV available on the Apple TV platform in the US will be significant boost. It is also a good deal for Apple as it will get to own that consumer, their data and the additional revenue.
Apple TV wins F1's US broadcast rights
Streaming platform Apple TV has won the bid to exclusively broadcast Formula 1 in the United States from 2026, signing a five-year deal with F1's commercial rights-holder.
Apple had long been a frontrunner in the race against current rights-holder ESPN to take over F1 streaming rights in the US, with the tech giant also behind the blockbuster F1 movie that become the highest grossing sports movie of all time.
Over the United States Grand Prix weekend in Austin, Apple and F1 management officially announced that they had agreed to a five-year deal to bring the series to the tech giant's streaming platform Apple TV between 2026 and 2033.
Today's session times
FP1 (or we can just call it FP) will start at 12:30 local time - that's 18:30 in the UK, plus the added/subtracted time from your local time zone.
Sprint qualifying then takes place at 16:30 local - 22:30 UK - to decide the grid for tomorrow's short, 19-lap race at 12:00 local (18:00 UK, 19:00 France, 23:30 Myanmar time).
Free practice coming up soon...
Hello everyone, and welcome along to our live coverage of the United States GP weekend!
Just one single practice session before we dive head-first into the sprint events over the weekend, so there's lots to do in the one hour of running!
General view
Photo by: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images
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