Formula 1 touches down on US soil and Austin Texas provides a warm welcome. The 2012 Formula 1 USGP takes place at the Circuit of the Americas™ this weekend, Nov 16-18.
Championship leader, Sebastian Vettel, wasted no time and was quickest in Friday’s first practice session. Engineers predicted a theoretical quickest lap time of 1 minute 39 seconds. However, Vettel decided that was too slow as he posted a time of 1:38:125 on his last lap of the 90 minute session. Vettel did 30 practice laps in total. This was also more than a second quicker than the time posted by second quickest Lewis Hamilton.
All 24 drivers racked up a lot of practice laps in an effort to learn this brand new track. There were many slides and some spins, but no major accidents in the first session. Nico Rosberg worked the hardest – he turned 32 laps.
Kimi Raikkonen took the honors of being the first racer ever on this brand new track.
Andre Smirnov is a life-long automotive enthusiast, writer, and software engineer. On the weekends – you may find him at a car show, an auction, watching a race, or tinkering with a car in the garage. When not working or spending time with the family – he often scours the internet and other media for various automotive, mechanical, and computer related information.
