As FormulaUno.it reports, Friday practice at Austin delivered an intensely close opening day where Charles Leclerc put his Ferrari on top, yet Max Verstappen still looks like the driver to beat. Leclerc finished FP2 with a 1:35.291, edging out Kimi Antonelli by 0.042 seconds and Verstappen by 0.189 seconds. But with track temperatures hitting nearly 42 degrees and different run programs across the field, the timesheets only tell part of the story.
Ferrari brought a comprehensive new aerodynamic package to Texas, and it clearly works through the medium-to-high speed sections. Leclerc looked entirely at home carving through the snake in the first sector and the final sequence, praising the new floor for giving him trustworthy front-end bite without killing the rear. Lewis Hamilton, running the exact same updates, struggled heavily and finished over six decimals behind his teammate. In radio exchanges with Carlo Santi, Hamilton complained of an unstable car and poor braking transition into corners like turn 7 and turn 12, prompting a change to two extra points of front wing. Beyond setup quirks, the SF-26 still carries a structural penalty on the straights, where its internal combustion engine and aerodynamic drag leave it trailing Red Bull and Mercedes.
Red Bull might not possess the quickest car in every single corner, but the RB22 is comfortably the most complete beast on the grid. Verstappen ended the session third, yet his ability to sacrifice a fraction of apex speed to straighten the car earlier for strong traction makes him relentlessly consistent. According to long run data, Verstappen and Leclerc managed virtually identical averages on the Soft tyre, but Max was far more measured early in the stint to protect his rubber.
Mercedes provided one of the more fascinating engineering puzzles of the day. Following a nervous FP1 where both drivers fought a car that refused to stop or turn, trackside engineering director Bradley Lord confirmed that setup adjustments between sessions cured their rotation issues. Instead of forcing the drivers to lean on the throttle mid-corner—which overheated the rear tyres—the W17 began turning naturally. Antonelli rewarded the team with second place, though the team still lacks consistent pace in the slower, extended turns.
Over at McLaren, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri kept a low profile on the timing screens, but Norris posted one of the day's best long run averages using the Hard compound. Pirelli's Dario Marrafuschi noted that the C2 tyre will likely play a secondary role on race day, with the C3 and C4 compounds pointing toward a straightforward one-stop strategy. The real test will come when everyone straps on identical rubber and turns up the power units for qualifying.
