Hamilton leads Leclerc in FP2 at COTA
- Shahmir Khan
- Nov 2, 2019
- 2 min read
Lewis Hamilton went quickest in the second free practice session of the day for United States Grand Prix, leading Charles Leclerc by three-tenths of a second.
Leclerc was quickest early in the session, setting a time of 1:34.434s on medium tyres, ahead of Hamilton who used harder tyres to end up 0.158s adrift.
The session was then affected by a red flag caused by Romain Grosjean hitting the barriers in Turn 5.
After the session resumed, front runners started to shift to soft compound, giving Hamilton the lead on time sheets by a time of 1:33.232s after a difficult lap.
Hamilton lost a good margin of 0.3s behind Leclerc in the first sector, with a tow from William's Robert Kubica in middle sector allowing Hamilton to secure the top spot with an advantage of 0.301s.
Top 3 was completed by Red Bull's Max Verstappen, who set his time on medium tyres, ending 0.343s ahead of Sebastian Vettel.
Vettel had a spin late in the session at Turn 14 on hard tyres, but his 1:33.890s was still enough to put him ahead of Valtteri Bottas.
Bottas finished 0.813s off the pace, with the issue related to losing time on straights according to his team.
Alexander Albon made it top six in second Red Bull, finishing just 0.075s behind Pierre Gasly.
Lance Stroll made a good jump to finish 9th after making a switch to soft tyres late in the session, with 1:34.744s being the Canadian's best lap.
Antonio Giovinazzi completed top 10 for Alfa Romeo, after surviving a spin at Turn 6 right hander, by losing the rear of his car.
Daniel Ricciardo was 11th quickest over the line, just half-a-second quicker than Daniil Kvyat.
His teammate did a 1:34.988s, the German's effort only 0.013s slower than Daniil Kvyat. His lap was still good enough to put him ahead of McLaren's Lando Norris and his former teammate Sergio Perez.
Kimi Raikkonen ended 16th quickest, more than 2 seconds off the pace ahead of the Haas duo of Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean.
Grosjean suffered an off-moment on only his 4th lap, bringing the car home only ahead of the Williams pair.
George Russell was quickest of the Williams pair, half-a-second quicker than Robert Kubica.
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