The 2019 US GP winner, Bottas, ousted Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton by just four hundredths of a second, while Max Verstappen was third almost a second behind the Finn’s time.
The first 10 minutes of FP1 on the Circuit of The Americas were largely lost to a red flag after Fernando Alonso came to a halt on his installation lap at Turn 12. Alpine instructed Alonso to stop his car as a precaution, but managed to get him back on track later in the session.
Hamilton was able to set the early pace for Mercedes on soft tires, but was helped by Sergio Perez at the head of the order, who drove some fast laps for Red Bull on tough tracks.
Verstappen briefly secured the top spot on Softs 20 minutes before the end of the session, but his time was comfortably beaten by Hamilton, who was nine tenths of a second ahead seconds later.
But it was Bottas who would eventually prevail as he set a fastest lap time of 1: 34.874 minutes on Softs, which gave him an initial buffer of two tenths of a second to Hamilton on P2.
While Hamilton would improve later, his time was 0.045 seconds behind Bottas’ benchmark, which ensured his teammate stayed the fastest when the checkered flag came out.
Verstappen improved his time but ended the session 0.932 seconds behind Bottas as Red Bull struggled to keep up with Mercedes.
Bottas will be given a starting place penalty of five places for the race on Sunday after Mercedes decided to equip its car with a new engine before the race weekend.
Charles Leclerc recovered from an early spin between turns 4 and 5 and finished fourth for Ferrari. He beat his teammate Carlos Sainz Jr by almost two tenths of a second, followed by AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly in sixth.
Perez finished the session for Red Bull in seventh place as his fastest time on hard tires was his best in FP1 after a soft tire effort – almost a second faster – was canceled due to a track limit violation at Turn 9.
Fernando Alonso, Alpine A521, stops in FP1
Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images
Perez was also implicated in a late incident with Mick Schumacher braking at Turn 12 that will be investigated after the session. The two drivers made contact when Perez tried to overtake the inside at Turn 12. Perez called Schumacher an “idiot” and said he “doesn’t look in his mirror”.
Lando Norris led McLaren’s efforts in eighth place but saw his hopes of improving the fresh softs on the final corner fade after locking and flattening his set of tires.
Alfa Romeo drivers Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Räikkönen finished in the top 10 after both improving late in the session.
George Russell finished 11th for Williams after finishing seventh in one phase, while Esteban Ocon had to complete most of the Alpine race after Alonso’s early edition.
But the Spaniard finally returned to the track and finished 15th behind the Aston Martin couple Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel.
Daniel Ricciardo finished 16th for McLaren, driving six tenths of a second slower than Norris in the sister car, the MCL35M, while Nicholas Latifi was also unable to keep up with the pace of his team-mate in Williams when he finished the session in 17th.
Yuki Tsunoda from AlphaTauri took 18th place in the final ranking ahead of the Haas duo Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin, who consolidated the starting order.
