COTA, FP1: Bottas leads Mercedes 1-2 in opening practice for United States GP

Valtteri Bottas went quickest in first practice for this weekend’s United States Grand Prix, beating Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen as running got underway at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas.

Bottas’ best time of the 60-minute session, a lap of 1:34.874, saw him finish just four-hundredths of a second ahead Hamilton, while Verstappen was almost a second off both Mercedes drivers.

Held in blazing sunshine and hot conditions, the first 10 minutes of the session were almost devoid of action as early on Fernando Alonso’s Alpine stopped at the side of the track at Turn 12 and had to be recovered. His car was brought back to the pit lane and he rejoined the action later on.

Hamilton then set the early pace on soft tyres with Red Bull’s Sergio Perez also putting in some good time on hard tyres to rise towards the top of the order. Verstappen then took top spot on softs with 20 minutes remaining in the session, but the Dutch driver’s time was soon beaten by Hamilton who put just under a second between himself and the Red Bull man.

Bottas, though, had pace in reserve and though Hamilton also improved late on, the Finn’s best time left him 0.045s ahead of the Briton. Verstappen too found time late on but he couldn’t get closer than 0.932 seconds off Bottas.

Maintaining his early pace will become increasingly important for Bottas as the weekend progresses as Mercedes revealed that the Finn’s car will be fitted with a new engine this weekend and he will be subject to a five-place grid drop for Sunday’s race.

Fourth place in the session went to Ferrari’s, with the Monegasque driver’s team-mate Carlos Sainz two tenths of a second behind in fifth place. AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly took sixth place ahead of Pérez, who claimed the spot with his early lap on hard tyres. The Mexican put in a good lap on soft tyres later in the session but it was deleted for a track limits offence at Turn 9.

Perez also had an incident at the end of the session when he and Haas’ Mick Schumacher collided at Turn 12. Neither car was damaged but the contact was set to be investigated by the stewards.

Lando Norris finished eighth for McLaren and Alfa Romeo drivers Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen rounded out the top 10.