Hamilton tops day one in Texas

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton recorded the fastest ever lap around the Circuit of the Americas on Friday (local time) on his way to recording the top time in both free practice sessions in the USGP.

Hamilton's time of 1:34.688 was nearly four tenths quicker than his nearest rival, the Red Bull of Max Verstappen, who was fresh off the news that he had resigned with Red Bull for a further three years. Sad to see it is expected that the young Dutchman will need to take a grid penalty this weekend with engine changes expected to take place on the number 33.

Third quickest overall was the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel, who desperately needs to outscore his title rival this weekend in the hope that he can claw back some of the 59 pint lead that Hamilton is carrying I to the final four races of the season.

However, it didn't look like that was on the cards here on Friday with Vettel suffering some serious reliability woes that left him sitting in the garage for a big chunk of the day.

Fourth quickest was the second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas, followed by Daniel Ricciardo and Kimi Raikkonen.

“That's a promising start to the weekend. We have plenty of areas to improve, but we are generally quite happy with the car on all the rubber and both fuel loads,” said Mercedes man James Allison.

“However, we are also conscious that Ferrari had a bit of a troubled day today, so maybe we haven't yet really seen where the opposition are at. I'm sure Valtteri will settle into the car a bit more overnight and we'll get it more to his liking. The early promise is of a decent weekend.”

New Renault racer Carlos Sainz was 11^th, one place ahead of his new teammate Nico Hulkenberg while Toro Rosso substitute, Brendon Hartley was 17^th, three seconds off the pace.