{"id":812834,"date":"2026-10-24T22:29:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T22:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/812834\/"},"modified":"2026-10-24T22:29:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T22:29:00","slug":"f1-united-states-gp-lewis-hamilton-pips-max-verstappen-in-fp3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/812834\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 United States GP: Lewis Hamilton pips Max Verstappen in FP3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lewis Hamilton<\/a> finished final practice on top at Formula 1’s United States Grand Prix, leading Max Verstappen<\/a> and Charles Leclerc<\/a> into qualifying at Austin.<\/p>\n

Hamilton was the only driver to break the 1m35s barrier in the final 20 minutes of third practice, as frequent track limits transgressions kept Ferrari<\/a> team-mate Leclerc from leapfrogging him on the leaderboard.<\/p>\n

Following an opening quarter of the session which can only be described as pedestrian, action picked up as Hamilton set a 1m36.716s on softs to get ahead of a number of medium-tyred install laps.<\/p>\n

His time was soon beaten by Liam Lawson<\/a> in the Racing Bulls<\/a> and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri<\/a>, while several heavy hitters kept turning laps on medium tyres instead.<\/p>\n

Verstappen even went top courtesy of a 1m35.702s on the yellow sidewall tyre, despite recurring complaints about his unsettling downshifts.<\/p>\n

Hamilton swiftly improved upon the Dutchman’s lap, using softs to set a 1m35.561s. But when Leclerc took over command with a 1m35.127s despite using the slower mediums, that underlined there was still a lot more pace to find.<\/p>\n

\"Max <\/p>\n

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n

Photo by: Anni Graf – Formula 1 via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Entering the final 20 minutes, Antonelli took a tenth out of Leclerc’s time on softs, but his lap was scratched for breaking track limits at Turn 9.<\/p>\n

Verstappen did adhere to the white lines to set a 1m35.061s and go top, with Red Bull the quickest car through sector one, only for Hamilton to dip below the 1m35s barrier with a 1m34.893s.<\/p>\n

Track limits, which have been a recurring theme throughout practice, also kept Leclerc from reclaiming first as he dipped over the white line at Turn 10.<\/p>\n

That meant the Monegasque had to settle for third behind Hamilton and Verstappen, setting up a finely poised qualifying session on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Championship leader Antonelli was fourth ahead of Mercedes<\/a> team-mate George Russell<\/a>, as the Silver Arrows appears to be a half-step behind on pure pace, with Piastri sixth in the difficult to tame MCL40.<\/p>\n

In the Audi<\/a>, Nico Hulkenberg<\/a> kept McLaren<\/a>\u2019s Lando Norris<\/a> from seventh, with the world champion\u2019s 1m35.2s also deleted for track limits at Turn 10.<\/p>\n

Alpine<\/a> driver Pierre Gasly<\/a> was ninth, a full second behind Hamilton, with Isack Hadjar<\/a> 10th in the second Red Bull as the Frenchman was left frustrated by his car’s handling.<\/p>\n

Photos from F1 United States GP – Saturday<\/p>\n

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\"Lewis<\/p>\n


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\"Max<\/p>\n


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\"Lewis<\/p>\n


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\"Max<\/p>\n


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\"Lewis<\/p>\n


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Read Also:<\/p>\n

F1 United States GP results – FP3<\/p>\n

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Take our 5 minute survey.<\/a><\/p>\n

– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton finished final practice on top at Formula 1’s United States Grand Prix, leading Max Verstappen and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":812835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[70286,266740,831,372,59,832,101,56,54,70285,55],"class_list":["post-812834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-circuit-of-the-americas","tag-f1-united-states-gp-lewis-hamilton-pips-max-verstappen-in-fp3","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-gb","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states-gp","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812834","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=812834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}