Max Verstappen led team-mate Daniel Ricciardo as Red Bull put pressure on Mercedes in final practice for the United States Grand Prix.
A disjointed session saw a number of drivers fail to get clean laps but Red Bull had already shown its pace by the time Mercedes attempted laps on supersoft tyres late on. Ricciardo had been fastest on supersofts early in the session but team-mate Verstappen went quicker with his qualifying simulation to set the pace with a 1:36.766.
Ricciardo was then attempting his own qualifying lap when he was held up by Kimi Raikkonen in the first sector, meaning he was unable to improve on his early time and ended the session 0.266s adrift.
Raikkonen finished the session third but was half a second off the pace having run wide at the penultimate corner. The Ferrari was 0.2s clear of Lewis Hamilton, who only just managed to get out in time to start a flying lap on supersoft tyres in the final seconds of the session but hit traffic as a result and had to abort his run. As a result, Hamilton was 0.7s slower than Verstappen but his best time came on softs.
While there is clearly more pace to come from Mercedes than the lap times show, Nico Rosberg’s supersoft lap was telling as he was 0.15s down on the Red Bulls in the first sector and was still slower than Verstappen after sector two – despite setting the best time of the session through the middle part of the lap – and returned to the pits instead of completing his lap.
Rosberg was a second off Verstappen in fifth at the chequered flag, with Sebastian Vettel 0.1s further back in sixth. Vettel complained of a gearbox problem and did not return after completing eight laps, although all of his running took place on supersoft tyres.
Nico Hulkenberg, Valtteri Bottas, Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso rounded out the top ten, but it is hard to take a clear picture from the session due to a number of interruptions.
The biggest one was a red flag for 10 minutes when Pascal Wehrlein spun off at Turn 19, losing the rear of his Manor under braking for the penultimate corner and sliding backwards into the gravel. Wehrlein tried for a number of minutes to get the car pushed back out by the marshals but had to switch the engine off as temperatures rose.
Aside from Vettel and Wehrlein, Carlos Sainz – who had Daniil Kvyat confirmed as his Toro Rosso team-mate for 2017 earlier on Saturday morning – was the other driver to fail to reach double figures. Sainz was hit by two punctures, first on his right rear and then on the left rear, which were caused by interference with the rim on his Toro Rosso.
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01
Max Verstappen
Red Bull
1:36.766
16
02
Daniel Ricciardo
Red Bull
1:37.032
19
03
Kimi Raikkonen
Ferrari
1:37.284
15
04
Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes
1:37.483
12
05
Nico Rosberg
Mercedes
1:37.784
10
06
Sebastian Vettel
Ferrari
1:37.894
8
07
Nico Hulkenberg
Force India
1:37.948
17
08
Valtteri Bottas
Williams
1:38.188
16
09
Jenson Button
McLaren
1:38.212
14
10
Fernando Alonso
McLaren
1:38.452
13
11
Sergio Perez
Force India
1:38.512
16
12
Jolyon Palmer
Renault
1:38.528
14
13
Felipe Massa
Williams
1:38.607
15
14
Daniil Kvyat
Toro Rosso
1:38.691
16
15
Carlos Sainz
Toro Rosso
1:38.710
6
16
Esteban Gutierrez
Haas
1:38.939
13
17
Romain Grosjean
Haas
1:39.097
13
18
Kevin Magnussen
Renault
1:39.105
14
19
Marcus Ericsson
Sauber
1:39.239
14
20
Felipe Nasr
Sauber
1:39.509
14
21
Esteban Ocon
Manor
1:39.771
19
22
Pascal Wehrlein
Manor
1:41.427
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