2021 US GP : Post-Friday practice reactions from Vettel and Stroll

Aston Martin showed strong pace at United States Grand Prix Friday practice session. Lance and team-mate Sebastian Vettel completed 95 laps at the Circuit of the Americas as F1 returned to Austin for the first time since 2019.

Friday’s practice programme began with a disrupted start when, three minutes into FP1, Alpine’s Fernando Alonso came to a halt at Turn 12 to bring out the red flag.

After an eight-minute stoppage, Sebastian and Lance took to the track and began to establish a baseline in the AMR21. With Sebastian set to take a grid penalty for power unit change-related reasons, the two differed on practice programmes as the former focused more on the race, rather than qualifying.

Sebastian ran solely on the fastest compound in FP1 and, while assessing the characteristics of the tyre, produced a personal best 1.36.982 lap. His best effort of 1.36.344, was deleted due to track limits, which placed Sebastian 14th at the close of the session after completing 20 laps.

Lance also completed 20 laps in FP1 and secured 13th, one-hundredth of a second ahead of his team-mate after a 1.36.972 run on the Soft tyre.

In FP2, Lance and Sebastian ran on all three tyre compounds as they continued their preparations for qualifying and the race. Lance showed promising pace in the after noon session to come home in P6 with a best lap time of 1:35.561, +0.615s down on session leader Checo Perez’s time.

The Canadian completed 25 laps in total while his teammate Vettel completed 30 Laps. Sebastian was 15th fastest with best lap time of 1:36.718.

Sebastian Vettel

“Today we ran a different practice programme to the majority of the field because we will be taking a grid penalty [due to changing elements of the power unit], so that means our focus is on the race, rather than qualifying.

“We maximised the sessions to work on longer runs and gather lots of data to review. Hopefully, that will help us on Sunday and we will be in good shape for the race.

“Although we will start further back, Austin is a track where you can overtake and the hotter conditions will be a tough test for all of us, which will hopefully create opportunities to move forward in the race.”

Lance Stroll

“It was great fun out there today. There were big crowds in the stands and I enjoy this track. It has been a positive start so far with competitive pace and we have learned a lot too.

“Managing the tyres will be crucial on Sunday because it is very easy to overheat them in these hot conditions, and we saw that today, plus it is a demanding track generally with some quick sections.

“We finished the day in P6 and, while I expect others to improve tomorrow, we have some good momentum that we will carry into the weekend.”