United States GP 2018
OCTOBER 20, 2018
Practice 3 Report - Busy Busy Busy
© RV Press
By Dan Knutson
The one-hour Free Practice 3 for the United States Grand Prix was a very busy session that ended with Sebastian Vettel on top of the times. It rained during both Friday sessions. Because of the mandated limited supply of wet weather tires for the weekend the teams limited their running on Friday, especially in FP2.
"The weather is very uncertain for qualifying and therefore we want to keep all our new sets of tires ready," Haas driver Romain Grosjean said Friday afternoon. "What we will do in FP3 depends on the conditions. Ideally, we'd love to have it dry so we can get some mileage in the dry before the race. It is always very difficult to guess the set up if you haven't done any dry running before the race, but the same for everyone. So if it is wet we will do a lap or two just to check the balance, and if it is dry it is going to be a very busy session."
On Saturday, with the forecast now showing dry weather for Saturday and Sunday, the teams got to work in FP3 on the dry-running set-ups for their cars.
The line-up for the weekend was: Mercedes – Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas; Ferrari – Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen; Red Bull TAG Heuer – Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen; Racing Point Force India Mercedes – Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon; Williams Mercedes –Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin; McLaren Renault – Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne; Renault – Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz; Toro Rosso Honda – Brendon Hartley and Pierre Gasly; Haas Ferrari – Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen; Sauber Ferrari – Marcus Ericsson and Charles Leclerc.
The ambient temperature at the start of the 60-minute session was 64 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Centigrade) and the track temperature was 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Centigrade).
Pirelli's slicks – used for the first time in the weekend – were the soft, super soft and ultra soft.
Leclerc led the line of cars heading out of the pits and up the hill to Turn 1.
"Lots to learn this session," Mercedes tweeted.
Raikkonen posted the early marker with a time of 1:35.514 on the ultra soft tires. Vettel was 0.039 of a second adrift.
The Mercedes drivers were on a different program and down in the midfield. "Grip is very poor," Hamilton radioed.
Ocon, Vandoorne, Verstappen, Ricciardo, Perez, Stroll, Alonso and Sainz rounded out the top ten 20 minutes into the session. So team strategies were very mixed at this stage.
Thirty-five minutes remained in FP3 when Raikkonen used the ultras to get down to a 1:34.419. Vettel improved but was 0.132 of a second behind his teammate.
Just past the midpoint of the session Bottas used the super softs to move into third place with a time of 1:34.556. A few minutes later Hamilton tried the ultras for the first time, but he made a mistake at Turn 1 and did a 1:35.207 that put him fourth.
Now more drivers were doing ultra runs included Verstappen who turned a 1:34.994 and temporarily took fourth away from Hamilton.
Then Vettel took the lead with a 1:33.797, which was 0.046 faster than Raikkonen.
With just over ten minutes remaining, the top ten were: Vettel, Raikkonen, Bottas, Hamilton, Verstappen, Ricciardo, Ocon, Sainz, Perez and Hulkenberg.
Several drivers did fast laps in the closing moments of this busy session, and the final order of the top ten was: Vettel, Raikkonen, Hamilton, Bottas, Verstappen, Ricciardo, Leclerc, Perez, Sainz Grosjean.