McLaren Racing’s Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo had a great opening day to their Austin weekend as Formula One returns to the Circuit of the Americas for the first time since 2019.
Lando Norris was eighth fastest in the opening practice while in Free Practice two he was second with a time of 01:35.203s and speaking following the action he said:
A decent Friday. It was warm today, and a bit tricky at times – quite bumpy and windy. So not ideal in terms of driving conditions, but in terms of pace, relative to others, I think we’re in a good position. Tonight we’ll work to try and make it a bit nicer to drive, and a bit easier to have some confidence to push that little bit more come qualifying. Let’s see what we can do tomorrow.
Daniel Ricciardo ended the day in fifth place with a time of 01:35.457s and speaking following the action he said:
“It was a pretty good day, pretty solid. There are some good signs. Still some work to do, for sure, there’s a few things overnight – but nothing crazy. I think we’ll work through it, a few little set-up changes, but I think we’re in a decent place. We’re obviously competitive, both cars in the top five, so I’ll try to find a few tenths overnight. It’s just good to be back in Texas. The great state that is Texas. I’m Australian by birth, Texan by the good grace of God!”
Andrea Stella Executive Director of Racing commented on the action saying:
It’s great to be back at the Circuit of the Americas. It’s a beautiful track layout, very bumpy but that makes the challenge more interesting – finding the right set-up, making the right compromises. It’s an enjoyable place to work and the fans generate a fantastic atmosphere. Today was pretty normal on track. We know this track is quite aggressive on tyres and so we were focused primarily on understanding tyre behaviour in these unusually warm conditions. We looked okay relative to the midfield battle and tomorrow we’ll hopefully continue to learn and progress, working towards scoring good points on Sunday.