Carlos Sainz leads Ferrari 1-2 in United States GP practice

Carlos Sainz headed the timesheets in the only F1 practice session of the weekend at the United States Grand Prix.

With the sprint format returning for this weekend at the Circuit of the Americas, the teams had just 60 minutes of running to get their setups fine-tuned ahead of sprint qualifying later today.

Ferrari looked comfortable right from the off with Sainz and Charles Leclerc setting strong times on the harder rubber.

While Max Verstappen led the way heading into the final 20 minutes, after setting his soft lap early, it was eclipsed by Sainz, ultimately by 0.253s.

Sainz stayed ahead of teammate Leclerc, whose best effort was initially ruined by a brief Virtual Safety Car.

Once Leclerc got a lap on the board, he was just 0.021s off the pace.

Ferrari are the only top team not to introduce any new upgrades for this weekend.

Verstappen ended up in third overall, just ahead of Lando Norris, who went wide on his best lap at the end of the session.

Oscar Piastri, who is not running the new McLaren front wing, was fifth-fastest, 0.306s down on Sainz.

The Mercedes appeared to be a handful with both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell spinning early on.

In the end, Hamilton led Russell in sixth and seventh respectively.

Kevin Magnussen was an impressive eighth in the upgraded Haas ahead of Fernando Alonso and Yuki Tsunoda.

Liam Lawson was just a tenth behind his teammate albeit in 13th on his return to F1 in place of Daniel Ricciardo.

Sergio Perez was down in 16th after complaining about the balance of his RB20.