With both drivers building up💮 for a fast lap, Verstappen passed Hamilton at Turn 15, before the seven-time😼 world champion returned the favour by diving down the inside of Verstappen’s Red Bull at the final corner. 

The championship protagonists continued to race each other side by side along COTA’s entire main straight and𓆉 into Turn 1 as they had their first on-track scrap of the weekend in ꦑAustin.

Hamilton held onto the position under braking for the first corner in a move that annoyed Verstappen, who lead🅺s the world championship by six points coming into the first US GP in two years. 

“Ha! Stupid idiot,” Verstappen said over team radio, before his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase told him: “Ignore it, don’t worrꦚy about it.” 

Neck and neck in the title battle, and in FP2

— Formula 1 (@F1)

Verstappen proceeded to raise his middle finger in the direction of Hamilton as the Mercedes driveܫr accelerated out of the corner and into the distance.

“We are all lining up to go for our laps, so I don’t really understa♏nd what happened t𒀰here,” Verstappen said of the incident after the session. 

It was a frustrating afternoon all round f🌺or Verstappen, who failed to set a represent🐠ative time and ended up eighth-fastest after hitting traffic on both his attempted flying laps, before aborting his soft-tyre run altogether. 

“It didn’t particularly feel bad in the short run, it was just a mess with the traffic,” Verstappen explainꦦed. 

“On the soft tyres, didn’t get t🏅he lap. Overall it’s not easy out there, the track is quite bumpy, and also to find the right compromise with the car hasn’t been the easiest so far. 

“There are a few posit🦋ive things to look at and we will continue to look aꦆt it also overnight.”