Charles Leclerc was fastest in the second practice session of the United States Grand Prix with a 1:35.291 on soft tyres, just 0.042 seconds ahead of Kimi Antonelli and 0.189s clear of Max Verstappen. It is 0.761s quicker than his FP1 best, and it also beats the 1:35.860 that Verstappen had cancelled in the first session.

The top four was Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari: Lewis Hamilton was fourth, 0.615s off his team-mate. Race Control issued 112 more deletion notices for track limits, and one of them kept George Russell out of the top four.

A 0.042s gap at the front

Leclerc did 30 laps in three stints (hards, then two sets of softs) and set his time on lap 10, on a barely used set of softs. Antonelli did 25 laps in four stints (two on mediums, one on softs, one on mediums again) and found his 1:35.333 on softs; Verstappen completed 24 laps in three stints for his 1:35.480. The three of them were separated by less than two tenths.

The sector bests were shared out: Verstappen was quickest in the first sector (25.571), Antonelli in the second (37.460) and Leclerc in the third (31.827).

Russell loses fourth place

Russell was fifth, 0.744s off the pace and 0.702s behind his team-mate, with his best lap on a three-lap-old set of mediums. A 1:35.793 of his had been deleted for track limits at Turn 20; it would have made him fourth, 0.242s better than his official time.

Track limits again

Race Control issued 112 notices deleting lap times for exceeding track limits, touching 21 of the 22 drivers. Turn 12 accounted for 41 of them and Turn 20 for 35, ahead of Turn 19 (14) and Turn 15 (nine). Isack Hadjar and Lando Norris collected the most, eleven each.

Other cancelled laps would also have moved the order: Oscar Piastri’s 1:36.029 at Turn 20 was 0.358s faster than his official time, and Hadjar had a 1:36.079 cancelled at Turns 19 and 15. Piastri’s time was 0.006s quicker than Russell’s official best, and Hadjar’s was 0.332s quicker than his own.

Midfield and conditions

Behind the front five, Lawson was sixth on 1:36.331, 1.040s off the top. Norris and Piastri were seventh and eighth, split by 0.014s. Fernando Alonso recorded the highest speed through the trap, 346 km/h.

It stayed dry throughout: air temperature went from 29.7°C to 29.3°C, track temperature from 42.4°C to 39.1°C and humidity from 23% to 25%.

The three fastest laps, compared

The video below puts Leclerc, Antonelli and Verstappen on the circuit together, each on their official best lap — cancelled laps excluded — at twice the real speed. The track takes the colour of whoever was quickest in each sector, and the finish is replayed in slow motion.

FP2 · Leclerc, Antonelli and Verstappen on their best valid laps (x2 speed).

What to watch in FP3

The final practice session starts at 12:30 in Austin, 19:30 in Paris, ahead of qualifying. With the top three inside 0.189s and the corners at Turns 12 and 20 still costing drivers their fastest laps, the margin to stay inside the white lines is likely to matter as much as the pace.

Sources

Classification, laps, tyres, deletions and weather: OpenF1 session results, laps, stints, race control messages and weather for the United States Grand Prix FP2 (session 11390). Deletion counts are the number of Race Control notices that name a lap time; a lap flagged at two corners counts twice.

Championship context and FP1 comparison: our United States GP preview and FP1 report.