(Motorsport) Scuderia Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz set the pace in Friday’s Practice Sessions with Sainz's 1:36.857 putting him 0.2 seconds ahead of newly crowned World Champion Max Verstappen in Practice One while his teammate Leclerc topped Practice Two, marginally better than Sainz. The Practice Two also allowed Pirelli to test their 2023 prototype tyres with drivers performing running plans set by the tyre manufacturer and not being able to make setup changes. 

The likes of Charles Leclerc, Valtteri Bottas, Daniel Ricciardo, Kevin Magnussen and Nicholas Latifi did a 30 minute session during Practice Two during the extended 90 minute session and the Monegasque driver, who sat out FP1, was quickest at Austin's Circuit of The Americas. Leclerc was a notable absentee in FP1 as Robert Shwartzman drove the F1-75 instead with three other FP1 debutants. One of the biggest talking points was Antonio Giovinazzi crashing Kevin Magnussen’s Haas which triggered a red flag and ruled him out for the remainder of the session. Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll finished fourth ahead of Red Bull’s Sergio Perez who was fifth.

Ferrari academy driver Shwartzman was joined by fellow youngsters Alex Palou (McLaren), Theo Pourchaire (Alfa Romeo) and Logan Sargeant (Williams). Verstappen looked quick and the Dutchman will hope to continue his dominant form by getting a win at Austin while Hamilton and George Russell remained four seconds off the pace in the first half of the session. The seven time World Champion then switched to soft compound tyres and reduced the deficit to a couple of tenths of Verstappen while Russell was half a second slower.

At the end of the session, it was confirmed that Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and Alfa Romeo's Zhou Guanyu will receive five-place grid penalties in Sunday's race after installing new engine parts while both the Ferrari drivers are also likely to incur penalties as the team revealed that they will be installing new parts as well. It will be interesting to see how the penalties affect the Drivers and Constructors Standings as Leclerc is competing with Perez for second place while Ferrari need to finish 19 points higher than Red Bull at Austin to remain in contention for the Constructors Standings. 

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