Ferrari introduces itself to the American public of Texas with Carlos Sainz who was the fastest in the first free practice session of the United States GP. The Spaniard placed his paw with the red in 1’36 “857 on soft tires (C4 compound) after having to interrupt the session because a piece of carbon in front of the front wheel came off the F1-75. Madrid put Ferrari in front of everyone, showing a good adaptation to the track which, for the most part resurfaced, no longer has the annoying bumps of the past.
Behind the Iberian there is Max Verstappen with Red Bull that pays 224 thousandths, while Sergio Perez is fifth with the second RB18 with a gap of over six tenths from the Scuderia. The Mexican has fitted a new internal combustion engine that will cost him five positions on the grid on Sunday. Between Milton Keynes’s two single-seaters are Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes and Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin.
The seven-time world champion has an evolved W13 in the bottom, but Brackley’s team had the new front wing equipped with five flow deflectors that the FIA rejected. What a fool! It’s really a bad year for silver arrows. George Russell with the other W13 is seventh: the English did not find a good balance, with the bottom often crawling on the asphalt.
In front of George is the excellent Fernando Alonso with the Alpine, while Esteban Ocon is 11th with the A522 equipped with the evolved bottom with the Ferrari-style slot in front of the rear wheel.
Eighth place for Pierre Gasly with the AlphaTauri: the Frenchman preceded Lando Norris with McLaren and Sebastian Vettel who closed the top 10 with the second Aston Martin.
In 12th place Guanyu Zhou with Alfa Romeo equipped with a new 6-cylinder 077/7: the Chinese was ahead of Alex Albon’s Williams and Japanese Yuki Tsunoda’s AT03. Last of the starting drivers Mick Schumacher 15th with the Haas.
In the queue there are the four rookie drivers with Robert Shwartzman 16th two seconds behind Sainz: the Israeli test driver saw his performance ruined by Verstappen who closed him while he would have moved to mid-grid with the red. The boy is the first to drive an official red not as a starting driver.
Shwartzman got behind Alex Palou a second behind with McLaren: the Indycar champion only worked with medium tires. Theo Pourchaire’s performance was positive two tenths from the Spaniard and in any case in front of Logan Sargeant with Williams: the American used the soft immediately and then worked with the hard tires so he couldn’t look for a good performance.
Antonio Giovinazzi made very little progress: the Italian who got on Kevin Magnussen’s Haas only did four laps because he lost the car in the snake, crashing into the front and causing the red flag. In reality, the Apulian managed to restart with his means, but to get out of the way he overheated the clutch, possibly ruining the gearbox as well. It could not have been worse for Antonio who hoped to relaunch himself to find a place in F1: he is left with a deudent last place that he certainly won’t want to remember. Pity…
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