Alonso tops opening practice in Austin
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso was fastest in the fog delayed opening practice of the USGP in Austin. His lap of 1m38.343s topped Jenson Button's McLaren and Valtteri Bottas in the Williams. Esteban Gutierrez was fourth fastest for Sauber ahead of Mercedes' Nico Rosberg.
Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel was down in 18th position and it was assumed he was running on full tanks.
American Alexander Rossi was down in 19th place in the slug Caterham. However, he was 0.7s faster than his teammate Charles Pic who has been a regular driver all year, which means Rossi has the speed to be an F1 driver, and he is always faster than his teammate in every series, but being straddled with Caterham means his career is going nowhere fast – an incredible waste of a talent.
Results
Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Behind | Laps |
1. | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 1m38.343s | +0.000s | 16 |
2. | Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 1m38.371s | +0.028s | 25 |
3. | Valtteri Bottas | Williams-Renault | 1m38.388s | +0.045s | 17 |
4. | Esteban Gutierrez | Sauber-Ferrari | 1m38.532s | +0.189s | 18 |
5. | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1m38.657s | +0.314s | 21 |
6. | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1m38.979s | +0.636s | 21 |
7. | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 1m39.005s | +0.662s | 17 |
8. | Mark Webber | Red Bull-Renault | 1m39.083s | +0.740s | 17 |
9. | Nico Hulkenberg | Sauber-Ferrari | 1m39.158s | +0.815s | 17 |
10. | Pastor Maldonado | Williams-Renault | 1m39.200s | +0.857s | 15 |
11. | Romain Grosjean | Lotus-Renault | 1m39.238s | +0.895s | 13 |
12. | Sergio Perez | McLaren-Mercedes | 1m39.256s | +0.913s | 17 |
13. | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus-Renault | 1m39.487s | +1.144s | 18 |
14. | Adrian Sutil | Force India-Mercedes | 1m39.699s | +1.356s | 15 |
15. | Paul di Resta | Force India-Mercedes | 1m39.836s | +1.493s | 15 |
16. | Daniel Ricciardo | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1m39.863s | +1.520s | 19 |
17. | Daniil Kvyat | Toro Rosso-Ferrari | 1m40.065s | +1.722s | 20 |
18. | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull-Renault | 1m40.662s | +2.319s | 21 |
19. | Alexander Rossi | Caterham-Renault | 1m41.399s | +3.056s | 21 |
20. | Max Chilton | Marussia-Cosworth | 1m41.605s | +3.262s | 19 |
21. | Charles Pic | Caterham-Renault | 1m42.054s | +3.711s | 19 |
22. | Rodolfo Gonzalez | Marussia-Cosworth | 1m43.716s | +5.373s | 17 |