Max positive after Friday practice in Austin: 'Looking good for Saturday'

Published on 22 October 2022 by Stefan Meens

Max Verstappen was seventh fastest after the second Friday practice of the United States Grand Prix. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was quickest in an FP2 session that was mainly aimed at gathering data for Pirelli on next year’s tyres. 

“The first practice session was actually quite good. We tried a few things with the car and it was positive to be at the front”, said Max eluding to his second place in FP1. 

“We knew that FP2 would be a bit different because of the tyre test. They gave me the C1 compound, which is one we don’t use here, so that was challenging, but thankfully, we could still work through our program.” 

Looking ahead to the remainder of the weekend, the Oracle Red Bull Racing driver said: “It’s looking good for Saturday, but we’ll have to see first how quick we are over one lap. The long runs are a bit of a question mark because we all lost FP2.” 

Originally, the Pirelli tyre test was scheduled for the Japanese Grand Prix, but due to the rain in Suzuka, the session was rescheduled for the US GP weekend. The test will give Pirelli valuable insight in next year’s compounds. 

In order to gather relevant data, the drivers are tasked to completed four runs, of which two ‘performance’ tests at 20kg fuel load and two long-run stints with the cars starting with 100kg of fuel. 

Because of the random tyre allocation, the gaps between the drivers are bigger than normal, with pace setter Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) almost seven seconds faster than last-placed Nicolas Latifi in the Williams.  

Ultimately, Max settles for seventh place, with Leclerc ending the uneventful session topping the timing charts. 

Contest US GP: win a 1:4 scale model Austin 2022 Max Verstappen helmet! 

Results second free practice United States: