First free practice puts Max nicely in third
Published on 21 October 2016 by Mike Motilall
Max Verstappen finished in third during the first free practice in the run up to the United States Grand Prix. The Red Bull Racing-driver only had the Mercedes duo in front of him, but both Lewis Hamilton (1:37.428) and Nico Rosberg were on the soft and super soft tyres. Max did his running only on the harder medium compound tyre. Team mate Daniel Ricciardo, also on the mediums, finished in seventh.
As Max steers his RB12 onto the Circuit of the Americas, kicking off the first free practice, on both side-pots of his car, racks have been mounted in order to collect aerodynamic data. After the first lap, his front wing is changed and Max does one more lap to enable a comparison between both wings.
As we see Jordan King at Manor make his debut during a Grand Prix-weekend, the Mercedes are leading the pack. However, they are running on the super soft tyres, while Ferrari and Williams are on the soft compound and Red Bull Racing on the mediums. By then, Max is the fastest driver on the hardest compound tyre.
The clock keeps ticking away as lap times plummet. Max’ also, having done the third fastest time on a new set of the medium compound tyre behind the Mercedes-duo, who are on the softs. He is 1,9 seconds off Hamilton’s pace.
There are many off track excursions during this first running on the American asphalt. Jolyon Palmer outbrakes himself at turn eighteen and spins off track. He is able to continue on without any issues. Daniil Kvyat was also very happy to make good use of the run off area's of the track when he spun off.
The most remarkable moment is when Sebastian Vettel runs over a kerb in his Ferrari, resulting in him losing some parts of his car and causing his right-side mirror to come adrift. Driving back to the pits, the German is forced to hold his broken mirror with his left hand. A brief virtual safety car is required to enable the retrieval of the remaining parts from the track.
Max starts his final run with over fifteen minutes remaining on the clock, on the same set of mediums. The other teams also fail to improve their times, resulting in the Dutchman being ahead of the Ferrari’s after some 28 laps on the mediums.
United States Grand Prix - Circuit of the Americas - Friday 21 October
First Free Practice 01 44 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:37.428 25 02 6 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:37.743 +0.315s 27 03 33 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer 1:39.379 +1.951s 28 04 7 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:39.407 +1.979s 21 05 27 Nico Hulkenberg Force India Mercedes 1:39.712 +2.284s 27 06 77 Valtteri Bottas Williams Mercedes 1:39.776 +2.348s 30 07 3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer 1:39.963 +2.535s 26 08 5 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:39.988 +2.560s 15 09 26 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso Ferrari 1:40.131 +2.703s 16 10 55 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso Ferrari 1:40.140 +2.712s 26 11 19 Felipe Massa Williams Mercedes 1:40.191 +2.763s 27 12 12 Felipe Nasr Sauber Ferrari 1:40.287 +2.859s 16 13 14 Fernando Alonso McLaren Honda 1:40.362 +2.934s 26 14 8 Romain Grosjean Haas Ferrari 1:40.826 +3.398s 15 15 21 Esteban Gutierrez Haas Ferrari 1:40.970 +3.542s 15 16 9 Marcus Ericsson Sauber Ferrari 1:41.170 +3.742s 17 17 34 Alfonso Celis Force India Mercedes 1:41.422 +3.994s 27 18 22 Jenson Button McLaren Honda 1:41.663 +4.235s 21 19 20 Kevin Magnussen Renault 1:41.942 +4.514s 22 20 42 Jordan King MRT Mercedes 1:42.012 +4.584s 29 21 30 Jolyon Palmer Renault 1:42.332 +4.904s 31 22 31 Esteban Ocon MRT Mercedes 1:43.874 +6.446s 27
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