Verstappen nips Vettel to top final USGP practice

Max Verstappen

Red Bull's Max Verstappen left it till late and turned the fastest lap of the weekend so far to top final practice for the USGP at COTA in Austin Texas.

The Dutchman's lap of 1m33.305s was 0.218s faster than Sebastian Vettel in the #5 Ferrari.

The real surprise was Lando Norris turning the 3rd best time 0.513s back.

Rounding out the top-5 were the two sandbagging Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton.

The Ferraris are competitive but are suffering from reliability woes, with Leclerc missing the entire session with a power unit issue.

Practice 3 Times

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	TIME	GAP	LAPS
1	33	Max Verstappen	Red Bull Racing Honda	1:33.305	+0.000s	13
2	5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:33.523	+0.218s	17
3	4	Lando Norris	McLaren Renault	1:33.818	+0.513s	14
4	77	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1:33.904	+0.599s	17
5	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:33.923	+0.618s	16
6	23	Alexander Albon	Red Bull Racing Honda	1:33.983	+0.678s	14
7	55	Carlos Sainz Jr.	McLaren Renault	1:34.408	+1.103s	15
8	7	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo Racing Ferrari	1:34.513	+1.208s	18
9	10	Pierre Gasly	Scuderia Toro Rosso Honda	1:34.517	+1.212s	14
10	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Renault	1:34.774	+1.469s	11
11	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	1:34.784	+1.479s	11
12	18	Lance Stroll	Racing Point Bwt Mercedes	1:34.792	+1.487s	14
13	8	Romain Grosjean	Haas Ferrari	1:34.849	+1.544s	17
14	26	Daniil Kvyat	Scuderia Toro Rosso Honda	1:35.129	+1.824s	16
15	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas Ferrari	1:35.305	+2.000s	14
16	99	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo Racing Ferrari	1:35.956	+2.651s	15
17	63	George Russell	Williams Mercedes	1:36.256	+2.951s	15
18	88	Robert Kubica	Williams Mercedes	1:36.628	+3.323s	17
19	11	Sergio Perez	Racing Point Bwt Mercedes	1:38.426	+5.121s	22
20	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	No Time	No Time	1