Isack Hadjar's engineer is giving the Racing Bulls driver some information over the team radio. But the information contains the word "Bottas", like former Mercedes man and soon-to-be Cadillac driver Valtteri, which is very confusing. Now Hadjar has a different issue - traffic, which he says is a "joke".

Lando Norris had a brief stint at the top in his McLaren but Max Verstappen goes quickest with a time just over three tenths faster than his Red Bull team-mate Yuki Tsunoda.

Liam Lawson, who fully embraces the cowboy aesthetic when visiting Austin, goes back to the top of the timesheets, before Lewis Hamilton jumps above the New Zealander with a time of 1:36.666 on the hard tyre.

Hamilton told the news conference yesterday he did something special this week - he sat on a horse! The seven-time world champion said because of his allergies as a kid, he could never ride a horse. But now that he's got them under control, he fulfilled his life-long ambtion during a photo shoot in Los Angeles.

Image source, Getty Images

The upgrade list could've been written on the back of a napkin this weekend, as only Mercedes and the American-based Haas team have brought along tweaks for the Circuit of the Americas.

Haas

Floor body, floor fences, floor edge, rear corner, sidepod inlet.

Mercedes

Rear corner.

Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso have put those mediums back in the blankets and have now joined the rest of the field on the hard compound. Liam Lawson was quickest in his Racing Bulls but now it's Carlos Sainz and his Williams who is top of the timesheets. The Spaniard's marker is a 1:37.486 on the white rubber.

The C1 hard tyre has been bolted on first at the likes of Red Bull, Racing Bulls, Alpine and Ferrari - actually, everybody except the Aston Martins of Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso, who have opted for an opening trip around COTA on the medium compound.

Max Verstappen, on the podium again in Singapore, gets us off the mark with a 1:38.797 on the white hards.

Harry Benjamin has picked five things to look out for at this weekend's United States Grand Prix - have a watch and see if you agree.

'Yeehaw!' and all that.

The first, and only, practice session of the weekend is green.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

The tyres are a little different this weekend in Austin, like Belgium in July, as Pirelli has chosen the C1 as the hard, then it's the C3 as the medium and the C4 as the soft.

As it's also a sprint event, drivers will be given 12 sets of tyres rather than the usual 13, with two sets of hards, four sets of mediums and six sets of softs on offer. The green intermediates and full wets have made the journey but it's unlikely we'll see them on track given the scorching temperatures forecast.

The rain at Spa-Francorchamps in the summer put a dampener on how this tyre selection would affect strategy, so COTA will give Pirelli a first look at how the harder hard choice will perform. .

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra

A warm welcome to Jennie Gow, Harry Benjamin, Andrew Benson and F1 journalist Scott Mitchell-Malm for tonight's coverage. Click the 'listen live' tab at the top of the page to tune in to commentary.

Andrew Benson
BBC F1 correspondent in Austin

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The temperatures are out of the ordinary for the US Grand Prix - Texas is going through a mid-October heatwave that is making conditions more akin to summer than autumn.

The 'heat hazard' designation - which is new this year - triggers a rule that gives drivers the option of wearing cooling vests in their cars.

For this season, the cooling vests are optional, and some drivers, such as four-time world champion Max Verstappen, do not like them because they consider them uncomfortable and flawed.

If the driver chooses not to wear the vest, his car must carry 500 grams of ballast to compensate for the weight of the system so he does not gain a competitive advantage.

The system, which teams can make to their individual designs, typically features a liquid such as glycol pumped through a tank of dry ice and through the driver's fireproof top.

Issues with the system include the dry ice running out. This leads to liquid at car temperature, which is hotter than ambient temperature, being pumped through the system.

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There will be no changes over at Mercedes for the 2026 campaign - George Russell and Kimi Antonelli are staying put. "Confirming our driver line-up was always just a matter of when, not if," said team principal Toto Wolff on Wednesday.

The flirtations with four-time world champion Max Verstappen are over (for now), so Russell, who has two wins in Canada and Singapore this season and is fourth in the championship, will be entering his fifth year with the team. Speaking on Thursday, he said he was "super happy" to have signed a new contract, which is "multi-year" and "definitely [for] 2026".

Rookie Antonelli joined Mercedes this season after Lewis Hamilton's departure to Ferrari. The 19-year-old claimed his first podium in Montreal in June and despite a mixed run during the European leg this summer, he is seventh in the standings. "I’m really happy to finally get the confirmation, and it’s nice to see that the team is really trusting me and really giving me their support," said the Italian.

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To be a fly on the wall in the McLaren office this week. "The talks from Singapore were very productive with everyone involved," said Oscar Piastri yesterday.

So, what did the championship leader make of the first-lap incident with his team-mate, now that the dust has settled? "The conclusion was what happened in Singapore is not how we want to go racing as a team and ultimately Lando has taken responsibility for that," Piastri said.

"Ultimately we have got that framework in place for a reason and there's no reason for that to change now. It has been dealt with."

Andrew Benson
BBC F1 correspondent in Austin

Image source, Getty Images

Lando Norris says he will face "consequences" for his first-lap collision with McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri at the Singapore Grand Prix.

The Briton collided with Piastri at Turn Three in Marina Bay after running into the back of Red Bull's Max Verstappen and damaging his front wing.

Norris went on to finish third with Piastri fourth in the race on 5 October.

"The team held me accountable for what happened, which I think is fair," he said on Thursday.

The 25-year-old added: "Then we made progress from there on understanding what the repercussions were for myself, to avoid anything happening worse than what did."

Neither Norris nor McLaren were willing to say what the consequences for him would be.

Norris said: "The last thing I want is something like that to happen. To cause this kind of controversial talks after a race."

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Now that McLaren have wrapped up the constructors' title, attention turns to which team will finish runners-up in the championship.

George Russell's win and Kimi Antonelli's fifth place in Singapore gave Mercedes a decent haul of points heading to Austin, so they're now 27 points free of third-placed Ferrari and 35 clear of Red Bull in fourth.

In the midfield, Williams are firmly locked in that fifth position, while Racing Bulls occupy sixth place, but Aston Martin in seventh are only four points behind thanks to Fernando Alonso's six points last time out.

Image source, Getty Images

Six races remain and we've still got a fight on our hands for the drivers' world championship.

Oscar Piastri, despite not making the podium last time out in Singapore, is leading team-mate Lando Norris by 22 points as we reach the final stretch of the season.

It might take something extraordinary for Max Verstappen to overhaul the McLaren deficit but stranger things have happened. The four-time world champion is 63 points off Piastri and 41 away from Norris in third place.

Lorraine McKenna
BBC Sport Journalist

Image source, Getty Images

Hello, folks. It's another hot one this weekend and the temperatures in Austin, just like Singapore, have triggered the FIA's 'heat hazard' warning. Saturday's sprint race and qualifying looks particularly sweaty, so decide now whether you want to wear a cooling vest or not.

First practice at the United States Grand Prix is at 18:30 BST.

Then we're straight into sprint qualifying at 22:30 BST.

With extra points on offer in tomorrow's sprint, this could be a key couple of days in the title fight. Oscar Piastri was not best pleased with McLaren team-mate Lando Norris during the opening lap at Marina Bay but hey, many would argue there's a championship on the line.

The gap between the two drivers is less than a race win, with Piastri in the driving seat with only a few rounds to go.