Championship rivals Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg traded blows at the top of the order in practice for the United States Grand Prix on Friday.
Hamilton, who is 33 points adrift of his Mercedes team-mate Rosberg in the battle for the title with only four rounds left, set the pace at a sun-blazed Circuit of the Americas yesterday morning.
But Rosberg usurped the Briton in the day's second session with a best lap of one minute 37.358 seconds at a track where he is yet to open his winning account.
Indeed it was Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo who split the Mercedes duo with Hamilton, who wrapped up his third title here last year, only third fastest, two tenths of a second adrift of Rosberg. Sebastian Vettel was fourth for Ferrari with Red Bull's Max Verstappen fifth in the order.
Hamilton, who turned on the charm offensive in Thursday's pre-race press conference following his peculiar Snapchat antics at the previous race in Japan, is without a victory since the German Grand Prix in July and faces an uphill task to wrestle the championship momentum back in his favour.
In contrast Rosberg, who has won four of the sport's five races since the summer break, can now afford to finish second on three occasions and third at one grand prix, and still secure his maiden title.
With that in mind, Hamilton may have wanted to send out a message to his championship rival with a victory this weekend seemingly imperative in his quest for a fourth championship.
But it was Rosberg, fresh from topping every practice session in Japan a fortnight ago before securing pole position and then cruising to his ninth victory of the season, who ended the day leading the way once more.
Hamilton however, appeared nonplussed about the German's efforts on Friday. "This circuit remains special for me as I won my third world championship here last year," he said afterwards. "It's great to see so many fans enjoying F1 in the US and coming out to show their support.
"On track it's been a great day for reliability and getting our programme done. We've still got to go away and analyse the data overnight to make sure we're ready for P3 and qualifying tomorrow."
Source: PA
