Perez predicts tight US qualifying in Austin

©RedBull

Sergio Perez might have set the top time in Friday afternoon's second practice for the United States Grand Prix, but he was under no illusion about the task ahead of Red Bull at the Circuit of the Americas.

Perez put in a time of 1:34.946s to head the timesheets at the end of FP2, but that was still a tenth slower tha the time set by Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas earlier in the day.

His time was also a tenth off a lap by Lewis Hamilton that was subsequently deleted for exceeding track limits.

Read also: Perez moves ahead of Norris in second practice in Austin

"FP2 was promising, but it’s going to be very tight in qualifying tomorrow," the Mexican driver said. "Mercedes were certainly very strong so let’s see what they have when it counts.

"I think we have to find a couple of tenths and put everything together to be in the mix for pole," he added.

"There’s a lot to be done now with the engineers to try and improve the car," he said. "There is some margin to improve our long run pace and our tyre degradation, but all in all it was a positive Friday."

©RedBull

It was a surprise to see Perez performing so strongly on friday after his recent record of slow starts to GP weekends. This time it was his team mate Max Verstappen who seemed to be struggling to get up to speed.

Having been third quickest in FP1, Verstappen was only eighth quickest in the afternoon having struggled to get a clear run.

Red Bull hasn’t won the US Grand Prix since 2013, when Sebastian Vettel emerged victorious over Lotus driver Romain Grosjean with Mark Webber joining them on the podium.

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.