Lewis Hamilton leads the way in United States GP Practice 3

Lewis Hamilton topped the timesheet in Practice 3 for the United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas, posting a 1:34.893 to beat Red Bull‘s Max Verstappen by 0.168 seconds. Behind the top two, Charles Leclerc slotted into third for Ferrari, leaving the top ten split by 1.037 seconds.

Practice timesheets often demand a healthy dose of scepticism, and Saturday morning in Texas proved no different with a flurry of deleted times. Alexander Albon lost seven laps to track limits, while Leclerc had six removed, Lando Norris four, and Gabriel Bortoleto four. In total, 42 lap times disappeared during the session.

Tyres and Long-Run Pace

Most of the front-running pack chased their fastest times on the soft compound. Hamilton cycled through four sets of soft tyres across the morning before locking in his benchmark, while Isack Hadjar was the only driver inside the top ten to set his best lap on the medium compound. Looking at the longer stints, Carlos Sainz averaged a 1:40.727 over six laps on softs, closely matched by Albon at 1:40.908. Meanwhile, Franco Colapinto managed a ten-lap run on mediums averaging 1:41.067, sitting just ahead of Pierre Gasly‘s nine-lap average of 1:41.093 on the same compound.

Teammate Battles and the Field Spread

Championship leader Kimi Antonelli wound up fourth, right ahead of Mercedes teammate George Russell as both Silver Arrows secured top-five berths alongside the Ferrari pair. Further down the order, internal gaps varied significantly. Max Verstappen outpaced Red Bull teammate Isack Hadjar by 0.869 seconds, while Nico Hulkenberg finished 0.585 seconds clear of Gabriel Bortoleto at Audi. Oliver Bearman had 0.507 seconds in hand over Esteban Ocon at Haas, and Fernando Alonso was 0.676 seconds faster than Lance Stroll at Aston Martin. Sergio Perez shouldered the heavy lifting with 25 laps completed for Cadillac.

Qualifying is next, scheduled for Saturday 24 October at 21:00 UTC.

Timing data: OpenF1. Forecast: MET Norway (CC BY 4.0). Charts and results card by Slip Stream GP.

This report was written automatically with the help of AI (Google Gemini), from public timing data. Every number in the tables and charts comes straight from the data. Spotted a mistake? Tell me.

Published by

Pasindu Senavirathna

Data

Jolpica-F1, OpenF1, Wikidata and Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and MET Norway

Last updated

25 Oct 2026, 23:11