Ferrari\u2019s Lewis Hamilton ended the third and final practice session for the United States Grand Prix at the top of the timesheets, the Ferrari driver setting the pace ahead of Max Verstappen and team mate Charles Leclerc.<\/p>\n
The result marked a practice clean sweep for the Scuderia, with the Mercedes duo of Kimi Antonelli \u2013 who could seal his maiden title this weekend \u2013 and George Russell rounding out the top five positions.<\/p>\n
It was a relatively quiet start to the session when the green light appeared at 1230 local time, with Cadillac\u2019s Sergio Perez, Audi\u2019s Gabriel Bortoleto and Alpine\u2019s Franco Colapinto the only three to venture out \u2013 the latter two will carry grid penalties into Sunday\u2019s race while the Mexican sat out FP1 as Colton Herta got a run out for the American squad.<\/p>\n
With Leclerc topping both of Friday\u2019s practices, plenty of eyes were lasered in on what Ferrari could deliver again out on track \u2013 though the Monegasque had warned against any \u201chigh expectations\u201d with other rivals having more \u201cto unlock\u201d. As the clock reached the 20-minute mark there was perhaps the first example of that, as Verstappen reached the top of the timesheets courtesy of a 1m 35.702s lap on the mediums.<\/p>\n
Antonelli soon slotted into third, behind the McLaren of Oscar Piastri, while Lando Norris and Leclerc\u2019s first efforts were deleted for track limits violations \u2013 a theme of the weekend after a whopping 128 laps were deleted in FP2. Hamilton then got in on the action as he usurped Verstappen\u2019s initial benchmark, though the seven-time champion\u2019s effort was on the soft tyre compound.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere Audi\u2019s Nico Hulkenberg was involved in a pit lane incident with Lance Stroll, as replays showed the Aston Martin man was coming down the fast lane just as the German set off for a practice start after pulling off to the side. The stewards soon confirmed the moment would be investigated after the session.<\/p>\n
As FP3 reached the halfway point, Leclerc soon got a lap time on the board as he returned to the top of the timesheets with an impressive 1m 35.127s on the mediums, a time that was 0.164s faster than his table-topping effort in Friday\u2019s FP2. Behind him was Antonelli, Hamilton and Verstappen \u2013 the Red Bull man having just been on the radio to complain about his car\u2019s shifts.<\/p>\n
Further push laps were soon on the agenda as the Mercedes duo rocketed around the Circuit of The Americas on softs, with Antonelli claiming top spot while Russell slotted into third behind Leclerc. However, the Italian fell victim to track limits at Turn 9 leaving his Race Engineer Pete Bonnington to tell him, \u201cyou were doing so well.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was soon the turn of Verstappen to return to the top of the leaderboard, before Hamilton became the first to break into the 1m 34s as he bumped the Red Bull man down into second. Leclerc\u2019s subsequent effort then saw him marginally pip his team mate to first once again, but the now familiar track limits message also saw that effort deleted, with Leclerc dropping back into third.<\/p>\n
The chequered flag soon arrived to bring the final practice session of the weekend to a close, with Hamilton\u2019s 1m 34.893s enough to see him fastest and make it a practice clean sweep for the Scuderia. Verstappen\u2019s effort left him second while Leclerc settled for third after that deleted lap time.<\/p>\n
The Mercedes pair of Antonelli and Russell occupied fourth and fifth ahead of the McLaren of Piastri and Audi\u2019s Hulkenberg. Norris \u2013 who had explained how difficult it was to handle his MCL40 yesterday \u2013 was in eighth, with Alpine\u2019s Pierre Gasly in ninth and Red Bull\u2019s Isack Hadjar in tenth.<\/p>\n
The Racing Bulls pair of Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad were next in the order \u2013 the rookie is the third driver facing a grid penalty on Sunday \u2013 while Gabriel Bortoleto, Ollie Bearman, Franco Colapinto and Fernando Alonso filled in the places down to 16th. Esteban Ocon sat 17th ahead of Lance Stroll, with Williams\u2019 disappointing weekend continuing as Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz were left in 19th and 20th respectively. The Cadillac\u2019s of Perez and Valtteri Bottas rounded out the order in 21st and 22nd.<\/p>\n
With practice in Austin now complete, the attentions of the paddock will switch to Qualifying, which is set to get underway at 1600 local time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ferrari\u2019s Lewis Hamilton ended the third and final practice session for the United States Grand Prix at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":812769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[59,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-812768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-gb","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}