Valtteri Bottas ended up fourth fastest in the afternoon Free Practice session at the Circuit of the Americas, and after finishing 0.611 seconds off pace-setting team-mate Lewis Hamilton, he hopes more speed will come on Saturday.
The morning session was a wet/dry affair, with the Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team driver finishing third fastest despite losing a set of tyres due to a lock-up that flat-spotted them, but the afternoon session in completely dry conditions saw him complete his programme.
Bottas is hoping for the remainder of the weekend in Texas to be dry, but he knows he has to improve if he wants to match his team-mate and continue the fight for second place in the Drivers’ Championship with Sebastian Vettel.
“The first practice was compromised by the weather,” said Bottas. “We struggled to get many laps, and I also flat spotted at the tyres in FP1 quite badly, so we had limited running.
“But in second practice we got a lot of running done, both short runs and long runs. So in the end, we got everything from today that we needed. Set-up-wise I think we have the usual work to do.
“Overall, it has been a pretty normal day. I enjoyed today, but I’m hoping there is more to come tomorrow. Hopefully it stays dry over the weekend, it would be nicer for the teams and the fans.”
