Hamilton sets the pace in FP1 at Austin

Hamilton sets the pace in FP1 at Austin

This afternoon we saw Lewis Hamilton setting the pace in FP1 in Austin ahead of his team mate and championship rival Nico Rosberg and Jenson Button who was third fastest.

Heading into the Grand Prix, the news Caterham and Marussia will both miss the United States Grand Prix due to both teams entering administration means the Austin race is set to feature the smallest F1 grid in nearly a decade.

Caterham and Marussia were both placed under administration in the space of five days in the weeks following the Russian Grand Prix. This means that just 18 cars will line up for the race in Austin.

The 2005 Monaco Grand Prix was the last time 18 cars started a race in Formula One as BAR Honda completed its two-race ban for running an underweight car in San Marino.

Let us not forget that F1 has previous when it comes to a limited number of cars running in the United States; the controversial 2005 race saw just six cars start the race after Michelin’s entrants pulled out at the end of the formation lap due to a dispute over safety at the Indianapolis Speedway.

It was announced yesterday in a press conference that Jenson Button will receive a 5 place grid penalty heading into qualifying this weekend after having to change his gearbox on his McLaren.

During FP1, we saw Max Verstappen and Felipe Nasr making another debut for Toro Rosso and Williams in the session and gaining valuable experience on the Austin circuit and also in their respective cars.

During the first twenty minutes of FP1, we saw Kimi Raikkonen wearing an aero sensor on his Ferrari F14 T suggesting that the Ferrari team are gathering valuable data in preparation for working on their 2015 car.
However, things were not looking good for the Red Bull team with Sebastian Vettel looking increasingly likely that he will not be taking part in qualifying on Saturday and will have to replace his power unit even though he finished the session in seventh place and Daniel Ricciardo having to miss most of the session due to an ERS failure but finished the session in seventeenth place.

It was also announced by the FIA that they will testing out their virtual Safety Car procedure at the end of the session. In order to test out this procedure, the FIA will randomly select two cars from the grid who will test this out for the FIA.

But it was Hamilton who set the pace in FP1 ahead of Rosberg with a lap time of 1.39.941. Rosberg finished the session in second place ahead of Button who was 0.378 seconds behind the two Mercedes drivers.

Daniil Kvyat ended the session in fourth place ahead of Kevin Magnussen in fifth place and Fernando Alonso in sixth place who went off the track at Turn 12 in the early part of the session and then at the final corner towards the end of the session. Alonso still managed to finish ahead of Sebastian Vettel who finished in seventh place, Felipe Nasr who finished a credible eighth place, Nico Hulkenberg in ninth place and Max Verstappen rounding off the top 10 runners of the session.

Felipe Massa ended the session in eleventh place ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in twelfth place who stopped at the end of the pit lane at the end of the session in an unusual way. But Raikkonen finished ahead of Pastor Maldonado in thirteenth place despite him running off at Turn 6 by taking too much speed into the corner.

As he head into the final stages of the grid, Adrian Sutil finished the session in fourteenth place despite spinning during the session ahead of Sergio Perez in fifteenth place who appears to be struggling for pace, Esteban Guiterrez in sixteenth place, Daniel Ricciardo in seventeenth place and Romain Grosjean in eighteenth place who suffered a delaminated front tyre during the session.

The classification of FP1 at the United States Grand Prix is as follows below:-

Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1.39.941
Nico Rosberg Mercedes 0.292s
Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 0.378s
Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 0.946s
Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 1.046s
Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1.124s
Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1.522s
Felipe Nasr Williams-Mercedes 1.604s
Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1.781s
Max Verstappen Toro Rosso 1.844s
Felipe Massa Williams-Renault 1.966s
Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 2.024s
Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault 2.388s
Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 2.392s
Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 2.418s
Esteban Guiterrez Sauber-Ferrari 2.575s
Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 2.657s
Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 3.288s

Sarah Jones