Ahead of today's sole practice session the air temperature is 29 degrees C, while the track temperature is 37 degrees.

This being as Sprint weekend, with only the one practice session, upgrades are few and far between. Mercedes has a new Rear Corner featuring a reprofiled upper lip and reduced span winglets. The upper lip camber has been reduced to improve local flow quality around top wishbone, and winglet span reduced to increase tyre clearance.

For its home race, Haas has a raft of upgrades, being a new Floor Body, Floor Fences, Floor Edge, Rear Corner and Sidepod Inlet. This update builds on the Silverstone upgrade by refining the floor fences and outboard edge to increase aerodynamic load, with a focus on high-speed corner performance. The new floor required an optimization of the rear corner winglet, while there was a minor refinement of the mirror stay to improve flow alignment.

While the updates are sadly lacking a number of teams have new liveries for this race, but in all honesty not one of them is in any way striking, merely another nod to sponsors and F1's desperation to conquer America... women and children first.

As was the case at Spa, Pirelli has opted to skip a compound, in that the hard is the C1 while the medium is the C3 not the C2. The soft being the C4.

Insisting that his title chances are 50/50, Verstappen heads the queue in the pitlane, the Dutchman clearly eager to get to work. He is followed by Lawson, Bearman, Ocon and Tsunoda.

As more drivers head out, the hards are the order of the day, though, as ever, the Aston Martin pair are different and opt for mediums.

Verstappen's 38.797 is soon eclipsed by his former teammate Lawson, who stops the clock at 38.730.

Another former teammate (Sainz) posts a 37.486 and Russell a 38.092.

The Aston pair pit and switch to hards.

No sooner has Lawson improved to 37.462 than Hamilton crosses the line at 36.666.

Piastri goes second with a 37.339 and Norris fifth (37.456), but both are demoted when Verstappen posts a 36.192.

Sainz improves to 36.130 but Norris responds with a 36.126.

Hadjar is advised that Bottas is on a push lap. As the Frenchman runs wide - nothing to do with Bottas - Verstappen raises the bar with a 35.426.

Russell goes second, 0.132s off the pace, as Tsunoda goes third, ahead of Norris and Sainz.

Another off for Hadjar who appears to be overdoing the aggression.

Lawson improves to seventh with a 35.986, as Hamilton posts a 34.857 having gone quickest in the opening two sectors.

Twenty minutes in and the session is red flagged after debris is spotted on the kerb at Turn 19. It appears to be from the rear of Stroll's car after the Canadian ran wide.

The session resumes with 35 minutes remaining.

Albon gets thew session underway again, followed by Bearman, Russell, Hadjar and Alonso.

In the Williams garage there is an issue with Sainz's car which is up on its stand. An urgent radio calls suggests a serious gearbox issue.

With the restricted timetable due to this being a Sprint weekend, a number of drivers, including Verstappen, are already carrying out their race sims.

"The brakes it stayed at 100% all the way," says Ocon after taking full advantage of the run-off at the hairpin.

"That was quite bads from Albon," says Antonelli.

Still topping the timesheets, Hamilton reports that his throttle pedal is slippery.

With just under 15 minutes remaining, ahead of the qualifying sims, the Haas pair have the track to themselves.

They are subsequently joined by Russell and the RB pair.

As more drivers emerge, some are on softs others on mediums.

Verstappen is on the red-banded rubber, as is Piastri while Hamilton goes for medium.

Russell goes top with a 34.675 on mediums as Lawson (medium) goes second.

"What happened," asks Leclerc. "Can I shift or not, 7th wasn't working."

Tsunoda goes top with a 34.531 as his teammate responds with a 33.648.

Leclerc pits as Alonso goes top with a 33.639, 0.009s up on Verstappen.

Hamilton goes third on mediums but is demoted when Piastri (softs) goes third with a 33.858, 0.219s off Alonso's time.

Bearman goes fifth and Bortoleto sixth, but both are demoted when Hulkenberg goes third with a 33.853.

Norris is quickest in the final two sectors and goes top with a 33.294, though he ran wide in the final corner.

In the Ferrari garage Leclerc is out of his car, his session over.

A late improvement sees Albon go sixth, sandwiched between Piastri and Hamilton.

Antonelli goes 16th on the mediums and his teammate seventh on the same compound.

A nasty twitch in Turn 5 for Tsunoda, who somehow holds it all together.

Piastri improves to second, 0.279s off his teammate's pace.

At the death, quickest in S2, Hulkenberg splits the McLarens with a 33.549.

Norris is quickest, ahead of Hulkenberg, Piastri, Alonso, Verstappen, Albon, Russell, Hamilton, Hadjar and Bearman.

Ocon is eleventh, ahead of Bortoleto, Tsunoda, Stroll, Lawson, Colapinto, Gasly,. Antonelli, Sainz and Leclerc.

The McLarens are clearly looking good but so is Verstappen, and while Ferrari and Williams had issues with one car the other looked fairly competitive.

Hard to draw that much from the session as the track was clearly constantly evolving, but it does set us up nicely for the Shootout.