[F1] Hamilton Pips Fired-Up: Austin Practices

 (FREE PRACTICE 3 NOV 1-10:00 AM CST) NBCSPORTS Extra Live

PRACTICE 3

Hamilton ahead ; brake trouble delays Rosberg
2014 United States Grand Prix third practice

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Circuit of the Americas, 2014Lewis Hamilton completed a clean sweep of practice sessions at the Circuit of the Americas by heading the final hour of running ahead of qualifying.

The Mercedes driver lowered the best time of the weekend to a 1’37.107 but team mate Nico Rosberg was over eight tenths of a second slower. Rosberg was twice called into the pits to have his brakes examined as the team addressed an offset in performance between the two sides of his car.

It wasn’t plain sailing for Hamilton either, who spun his car at turn 12 towards the end of his running on the medium tyres.

Williams showed their hand in final practice but their quickest driver, Felipe Massa, was well over a second slower than Hamilton. Valtteri Bottas ensured the Grove cars were decisively best of the rest.

Fernando Alonso was fifth-quickest for Ferrari while Kimi Raikkonen, ninth, was troubled by a vibration on his car.

Daniel Ricciardo put Red Bull sixth. Sebastian Vettel concentrated on his race set-up in the other car, as his pit lane start penalty means he has nothing to gain from refining his one-lap pace.

Both Force Indias made it into the top ten but the fastest McLaren was no higher than tenth. Tyre warm-up in the cool conditions of Saturday morning proved a particular problem for Jenson Button.

Pos. No. Driver Car Best lap Gap Laps

1  44 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1’37.107 13
2  6 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1’37.990 0.883 15
3  19 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1’38.214 1.107 19
4  77 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1’38.437 1.330 20
5  14 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1’38.727 1.620 13
6   3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1’38.927 1.820 16
7   27 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1’38.960 1.853 20
8   99 Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 1’39.000 1.893 22
9  7 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1’39.143 2.036 17
10  22 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1’39.241 2.134 22
11  20 Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 1’39.335 2.228 19
12  13 Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault 1’39.448 2.341 18
13 8 Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1’39.561 2.454 31
14 11 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1’39.582 2.475 21
15 26 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso-Renault 1’39.688 2.581 19
16 21 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 1’40.208 3.101 22
17 25 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Renault 1’41.443 4.336 12
18 1 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1’41.765 4.658 25

Combined practice times

Pos Driver Car FP1 FP2 FP3 Fri/Sat diff Total laps
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1’39.941 1’39.085 1’37.107 -1.978 59
2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1’40.233 1’39.088 1’37.990 -1.098 81
3 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1’41.907 1’40.457 1’38.214 -2.243 76
4 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1’40.828 1’38.437 -2.391 57
5 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1’41.065 1’40.189 1’38.727 -1.462 69
6 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1’42.598 1’40.390 1’38.927 -1.463 51
7 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1’41.722 1’40.800 1’38.960 -1.84 69
8 Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 1’42.333 1’41.332 1’39.000 -2.332 78
9 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1’41.965 1’40.543 1’39.143 -1.4 72
10 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1’40.319 1’40.698 1’39.241 -1.078 85
11 Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 1’40.987 1’40.641 1’39.335 -1.306 86
12 Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault 1’42.329 1’41.158 1’39.448 -1.71 83
13 Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1’43.229 1’41.054 1’39.561 -1.493 88
14 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1’42.359 1’41.123 1’39.582 -1.541 79
15 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso-Renault 1’40.887 1’40.631 1’39.688 -0.943 86
16 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 1’42.516 1’41.420 1’40.208 -1.212 80
17 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Renault 1’41.110 1’41.443 +0.333 48
18 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1’41.463 1’43.980 1’41.765 +0.302 64
19 Felipe Nasr Williams-Mercedes 1’41.545 19
20 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso-Renault 1’41.785 32

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Practice 1 & 2





Lewis Hamilton edged team mate Nico Rosberg by the narrowest of margins after Mercedes once again dominated the Friday free practice sessions ahead of Sunday’s United States Grand Prix.

It took two bites of the cherry for Hamilton who was five hundredths of a second slower than Rosberg after their first lap on Pirelli’s soft tyre before finding the time he needed to score another psychological blow on his second quick lap.

By contrast, Rosberg, along with many drivers, couldn’t improve on his second lap but was still over a second clear of the best of the rest led by Fernando Alonso.






Both Hamilton and Rosberg reported minor gear selection issues and Hamilton ended his session early with plenty of activity around his car in the garage as the session drew to a close investigating what the team afterwards described as a minor hydraulic problem.

Alonso’s quick lap came after most had set their times, the Spaniard over three tenths of a second faster than team-mate Kimi Raikkonen’s in sixth place.

Fourth fastest was Daniel Ricciardo, 1.3s behind Hamilton. The Australian had a lot of work to do for Red Bull, his team-mate Sebastian Vettel confined to the garage for much of the session as his team performed a gearbox change.

With little interest in setting up for qualifying, Vettel focused on high-fuel load runs when he finally arrived on circuit, ending the day slowest of all 18th.

Felipe Massa was the quicker of the two Williams drivers in fifth, benefiting from getting two full sessions of running. Valtteri Bottas ended the day 11th having sat out FP1 to allow test driver Felipe Nasr a very impressive run.

Daniel Kvyat headed the Toro Rosso runners in both sessions ending FP2 seventh fastest, six places ahead of Jean Eric Vergne having finished the first session fourth, six spots ahead of impressive rookie Max Verstappen.

The McLarens set the early pace on the medium tyre but faded on the soft tyre, Kevin Magnussen and Jenson Button ending the day eighth and ninth with the Danish driver five hundredths faster than his English team mate.

Nico Hulkenberg was first of the Force Indias in 11th, just over a tenth and a half slower than Magnussen and four places better than Sergio Perez.


Romain Grosjean in 12th provided much of the entertainment once more, his Lotus proving a real handful as he shrugged off a big spin in the first section to come up with a time just over a tenth faster than 15th fastest Pastor Maldonado who also had at least one off track moment.

The Saubers of Adrian Sutil and Esteban Guttierez were 16th and 17th ahead of only Vettel and without the comfort of the Caterham and Marussias behind them on the time sheets this week.



As in session one, at the conclusion of timed activity, the cars performed another test of the FIA’s virtual safety car test

2014 United States Grand Prix – Free Practice 2
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:39.085 18
2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:39.088 0.003 34
3 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:40.189 1.104 29
4 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing 1:40.390 1.305 30
5 Felipe Massa Williams 1:40.457 1.372 36
6 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:40.543 1.458 32
7 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:40.631 1.546 34
8 Kevin Magnussen McLaren 1:40.641 1.556 38
9 Jenson Button McLaren 1:40.698 1.613 36
10 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:40.800 1.715 25
11 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:40.828 1.743 37
12 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:41.054 1.969 31
13 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:41.110 2.025 36
14 Sergio Perez Force India 1:41.123 2.038 35
15 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1:41.158 2.073 37
16 Adrian Sutil Sauber 1:41.332 2.247 33
17 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber 1:41.420 2.335 34
18 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 1:43.980 4.895

Weather Clear, dry, mild






Lewis Hamilton




The car felt good today and we were able to improve consistently over the two sessions. I only got a couple of laps of my long run which was unfortunate as we lost a bit of track time but Nico got the data for the team so we should be ok. I'm not sure exactly what the problem was and we had to stop as a precaution but I'm sure they will identify and fix it overnight.


These small glitches happen and I'm confident that we won't have problems moving forward. It's better that it happened today rather than later in the weekend, of course. It looks very close with Nico out there and I'm expecting a very tough battle this weekend.


I love being here and it's great to see so many fans around the circuit already, so I'm excited for the rest of the weekend and feeling ready to put on a show for them.






Nico Rosberg

Our Silver Arrow feels very quick around this circuit which is very impressive to see. Between Lewis and myself, the times were very tight as usual. But it was worrying to see that Lewis had a problem with his car as it shows that our car is still not 100% robust at the moment.


We need to work on that but overall I'm really looking forward to the weekend. It looks like it will be a close battle between my teammate and I, so let's hope we can put on a great show for the fans here in Texas.



Toto Wolff

While it is positive to see strong pace from our car, the main focus must be on ensuring bulletproof reliability. Of course, it is better to have these problems on a Friday than on a Sunday and we will be working hard overnight to ensure that this is not the case.


It is great to be back in Austin and to see Formula One growing in stature here in the United States. It is a key market for the sport, so to see the reception we have had already this week is a big positive.



Paddy Lowe


We've shown good pace here today and both drivers are happy with the performance of the car. Unfortunately, however, Lewis had his afternoon cut short by a hydraulic problem. We spotted something in the data and decided to call Lewis in to play it safe. That aside, we ran to our scheduled programme throughout the day.


The tyre compounds nominated for this race - medium and soft - are a step softer overall than those seen last year. As such, they are coming into their window quite quickly and we are seeing a reasonable amount of degradation on the long runs - both on the prime and option.


This should lead to a notably different race from a strategic perspective to that in previous visits to this circuit - or indeed at the last race in Sochi.




Daniel Ricciardo