Sebastian Vettel is confident Friday's water leak will not blight his US GP weekend as he looks to consolidate his lead in the Championship.
The Red Bull racer was the driver to beat around the Circuit of the Americas on Friday as he blitzed his rivals in first practice. Vettel put in a late charge to shoot to the top of the timesheets by 1.4s.
It was more of the same in the afternoon's session where, despite a water leak, he clocked a 1:37.718 to pull seven-tenths clear of his team-mate Mark Webber and 0.765s ahead of his Championship rival Fernando Alonso.
And although the reigning Champion completed just 17 laps - less than half the number his rivals amassed - he reckons he covered what was needed.
"This afternoon we had a little bit of a problem," Vettel said.
"We couldn't run as much as we would like to but nevertheless we got two good runs - one with less fuel, one with more fuel - so we are well prepared for tomorrow."
"It was important to have two good runs this afternoon on the soft tyre - or the medium tyre - the softer compound, so I think that was very valuable."
The German, though, downplayed Red Bull's 1-2 on Friday afternoon, saying the track will change over the course of the weekend.
"I think Friday you need to be careful, also the fact that it's very slippery can make a big difference; a bigger difference than you think.
"I think there were more than one or two surprises today in terms of pace and people so we'll see what happens tomorrow. The track will constantly improve and we'll go from there.
"For us it's most important that we are amongst the guys at the top and obviously we try to improve the car for tomorrow to make sure that we stay there."
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