Track limits became a defining issue in Friday practice at the 2026 United States Grand Prix. Reports counted 207 deleted lap times across 23 drivers at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas: 79 in FP1 and 128 in FP2. Even amid the repeated deletions, Charles Leclerc set the fastest valid time in both sessions.
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The violations rose sharply in FP2
The number of deleted laps climbed by 49 from the first session to the second. Reports said the breaches were concentrated around Turns 12, 19 and 20, where drivers repeatedly went beyond the track limits.
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Alex Albon topped the reported list with 20 deleted laps, while Lando Norris had 18. Valtteri Bottas was at the other end of the tally, with one deletion.
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Leclerc kept the fastest valid lap
A deleted lap does not count toward a session’s classification. Leclerc’s fastest remaining times were enough to put him first in both Friday sessions: he finished FP1 0.084 seconds ahead of Verstappen, then clocked a 1:35.291 in FP2 to beat Antonelli by 0.042 seconds. Verstappen was third in FP2, 0.189 seconds off Leclerc’s time.
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The scale of the tally made track limits an obvious concern for qualifying: a fast lap only helps if it stays within the permitted boundaries. A report on Friday’s running said the FIA’s monitoring system responded to breaches quickly and warned that the issue could carry into qualifying.
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What the 207 figure tells us—and what it doesn’t
The 207 count is a Friday-practice total, not a race-penalty tally. It shows how often lap times were removed during the two sessions, but it does not by itself establish the consequences of any particular driver’s track-limit breaches later in the weekend.
The headline is therefore twofold: track limits disrupted practice across the field, especially in FP2, while Leclerc managed to keep his quickest laps valid and led both sessions.