Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton went quickest in the second practice session for the United States Grand Prix, lapping three tenths of a second faster than Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and third-placed Red Bull driver Max Verstappen
Leclerc led the way in the early part of the 90-minute session, with the Monegasque racer climbing to the top of the timesheet with a lap of 1:34.434 on medium compound Pirelli tyres as Hamilton restricted himself to the hard compound.
Prior to Leclerc’s table topper the opening phase session was briefly interrupted when Romain Grosjean crashed in Turn 5. The Haas driver lost control and arrowed into the barriers. The incident brought out the red flags while the Frenchman’s car was recovered.
Halfway through the session the field began to migrate to soft tyres for qualifying simulations and again it was Leclerc who initially set the pace with a time of 1:33.553, though the Ferrari driver might have gone quicker if not for a slightly slow final sector.
It was left to Hamilton to lead the way and just a couple of minutes after Leclerc has established the benchmark the Briton crossed the line in a 1:33.232 to beat the young Ferrari star by 0.301 with Verstappen 0.014s further back.
Sebastian Vettel was fourth in the second Ferrari, though the German was more than three tenths of a second slower than team-mate Leclerc and some 0.658s behind Hamilton. Valtteri Bottas was fifth in the second Mercedes, while Alex Albon finished sixth in the second Red Bull.
Best of the rest honours went to Pierre Gasly. The Frenchman couldn’t match the fourth pace he’d reached in the morning session but his lap of 1:34.509, 1.277 off Hamilton was good enough for seventh place and continued the Toro Rosso driver’s good start to the weekend.
Carlos Sainz took eighth place for McLaren 34, a little under two tenths behind Gasly, Lance Stroll was ninth for Racing Point and the final top-10 position went to Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi.
2019 FIA Formula One United States Grand Prix – Free Practice 2
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 34 1:33.232
2 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 33 1:33.533 0.301
3 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing 28 1:33.547 0.315
4 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 35 1:33.890 0.658
5 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 34 1:34.045 0.813
6 Alex Albon Red Bull Racing 32 1:34.434 1.202
7 Pierre Gasly Toro Rosso 31 1:34.509 1.277
8 Carlos Sainz Jr. McLaren 34 1:34.667 1.435
9 Lance Stroll Racing Point 29 1:34.744 1.512
10 Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo Racing 29 1:34.839 1.607
11 Daniel Ricciardo Renault 29 1:34.924 1.692
12 Federation Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 36 1:34.975 1.743
13 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 32 1:34.988 1.756
14 Lando Norris McLaren 30 1:35.025 1.793
15 Sergio Perez Racing Point 26 1:35.109 1.877
16 Kimi Raikkonen Alfa Romeo Racing 34 1:35.387 2.155
17 Kevin Magnussen Haas 28 1:35.442 2.210
18 Romain Grosjean Haas 4 1:35.789 2.557
19 George Russell Williams 37 1:36.749 3.517
20 Robert Kubica Williams 33 1:37.283 4.051
