Charles Leclerc leads unusual second practice at United States Grand Prix as Pirelli test 2023 F1 tyres

Charles Leclerc led a largely unrepresentative second practice session at the United States Grand Prix as Pirelli tested next year’s tyre compounds.

The session was 30 minutes longer than usual with every driver running at least one of the test compounds in Austin.

For testing purposes, it was a blind test so the drivers and teams didn’t know which compound of 2023 tyre they were running.

However, Leclerc was able to set his fastest time on this year’s medium tyre early in the session because he didn’t run in FP1 as he gave his seat to Ferrari test driver Robert Shwartzman.

Valtteri Bottas and Daniel Ricciardo were in the same position as Leclerc, so ended up second and third quickest by using the normal soft tyres.

Max Verstappen was seventh, with Lewis Hamilton in eighth and Pierre Gasly in ninth which underlined the strange nature of the session with times all over the place.

Sergio Perez was 10th after confirmation earlier in the day that he will take a five-grid place penalty for a new internal combustion engine, as will Zhou Guanyu. More drivers could take grid penalties for excessive use of power unit elements.

Before the final practice session and qualifying on Saturday, all eyes and ears will be on the team bosses’ press conference which will feature Christian Horner and Zak Brown.

Horner is expected to answer several questions on the topic after being seen holding talks with FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem.