22/10/2022
NEWS STORY
Round 19 of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship started on Friday with Haas F1 Team back on home soil for practice at the Circuit of the Americas as teams prepared for Sunday's 56-lap United States Grand Prix.
Mick Schumacher was joined in FP1 by Antonio Giovinazzi, the Scuderia Ferrari reserve driver undertaking the second of two FP1 practice outings agreed with the team - with Kevin Magnussen vacating his seat to the Italian for this appearance. Unfortunately for Giovinazzi his session lasted just four laps after an off into the barriers at Turn 6, and the subsequent overheating of his VF-22's clutch, meant a clutch change was required on his return to the pits.
Schumacher ran two lots of Pirelli P Zero Red soft tires in FP1. The German started with an install lap and baseline run on his opening set, recording a fastest lap of 1:39.905. Schumacher bettered that to a 1:38.922 on his second set, good for P15 on the timesheets, before finishing off with some high-fuel laps on the compound running to the checkered flag.
FP2 was dedicated to a Pirelli prototype tire test - the session extended from its usual 60-minutes to a 90-minute affair. Magnussen was back behind the wheel of his VF-22 and the Dane ran a total of four stints across his allocated sets of protype tires. He ended the session P11 with a best lap of 1:40.084. Schumacher added to his morning lap tally with a solid second session, also consisting of four runs. His quickest time on the prototype tires was a 1:39.507 to place P5 at the checkered.
Haas F1 Team ran a total of 74 laps on Friday across FP1 and FP2 - 46 by Schumacher, 24 by Magnussen and 4 by Giovinazzi.
Kevin Magnussen: "I think it's about finding a good compromise with the wind firstly because there's sector one and half of sector two which is tailwind, and the rest of the track is headwind. The balance is very different and it's only going to get stronger tomorrow and on Sunday. It's different with these cars as they're so stiff. The last car I drove around here was the older generation car and they were much softer. It is a bumpy track so you feel it so much more with these cars, and it can make it snap in a couple of places. I'd say it's actually a little more difficult to drive now."
Mick Schumacher: "It's great to be back, we have our special livery out this weekend and driving in front of a home crowd is always nice. The performance was there, but you never know what's happening around you and what compounds or fuel loads others are using. We'll gladly take it today, but I don't think that's possible for us tomorrow. Nonetheless, we still have some work to do and hopefully we'll qualify in the top 10, and then have a good race."
Antonio Giovinazzi: "I wasn't pushing but there were lots of gusts of wind and unfortunately I lost the rear, which got stuck in the barriers, and the session was over. It was only my second push lap in the session, my first with DRS, so apologies to the team. It's racing and sometimes these things happen."
Guenther Steiner, Team Principal: "FP1 was a little bit troublesome with Antonio hitting the barriers in his first laps. We think he got caught out by some wind from the back, and then we only had one car driving out there. FP2 went pretty well with the new prototype tires from Pirelli - we now need to go through the data to see how they work - but I didn't hear any big complaints about them. Tomorrow, we will try to have a solid session in FP3 and then get ready for qualifying."