Charles Leclerc kept Ferrari on top in second practice for Formula 1's 2026 United States Grand Prix, narrowly beating Kimi Antonelli's Mercedes and Max Verstappen's Red Bull to the fastest time.
Leclerc topped FP1 around Austin's Circuit of the Americas, but only because Verstappen had a quicker lap deleted for track limits, and it was Verstappen who set the pace early on in FP2 on the medium Pirelli tyres, after finally doing a lap below 1m36s that was legal.
George Russell managed a 1m36.0s for Mercedes early on in FP2, while the Ferraris and Lando Norris's McLaren ran the hard compound tyre and Antonelli spent time in the garage fixing a loose seat that he described as "moving like crazy".
When F1's likely 2026 champion did finally take to the track in anger, out of sequence with the rest, he was two tenths off his Mercedes team-mate.
Leclerc's hard-tyre running was compromised by traffic in the high-speed Esses and getting forced off the circuit by Russell (who was shown a warning flag for his trouble), but on the soft-tyre qualifying simulations the Ferrari came alive and Leclerc went fastest with a 1m35.291s lap.
Antonelli was less than half a tenth away in the best of the Mercedes, while Verstappen lapped just under two tenths off Leclerc, although the later long runs tended to favour Red Bull and Mercedes over the Ferrari in terms of laptime averages.
Behind the top three was a big gap to Lewis Hamilton in the other Ferrari, who completed two very similar flying laps during his qualifying simulation that were both more than six tenths off the pace.
Russell had a huge moment through the Esses on his qualifying run and ended up only fifth, while Liam Lawson capitalised on tricky sessions for both McLarens and the second Red Bull of Isack Hadjar to put Racing Bulls in the top six, all of them more than a second off the pace.
Hadjar sounded very unhappy with his car's balance, while Oscar Piastri had two stabs at a qualifying simulation run and yet still ended up 0.014s off Norris - who went off at Turn 15 on his qualifying run after a huge front axle lockup and so failed to improve upon his earlier hard-tyre laptime.
Ollie Bearman rounded out the top 10 for Haas, just over a tenth down on Hadjar but three tenths clear of Gabriel Bortoleto's Audi, which was top-six fast in the early stages on the harder tyre compounds but gave away relative pace on the soft.
The Aston Martin at this stage looks like a marginal Q2 car, with Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll separated by less than half a tenth of a second, while the Williams looks like the worst car on the track to drive, robbing its drivers of confidence with its unpredictable behaviour and lack of grip.
Alex Albon had a huge moment through the Esses and was slowest of all after failing to set a representative laptime in FP2, as was the case in FP1, while Carlos Sainz was wedged between the Cadillacs in 20th place on the timing sheet, saying "the car is a mess right now".