Lewis Hamilton Quickest On Day 1 In Las Vegas

Lewis Hamilton was quickest tonight in Las Vegas. The Mercedes driver posted a time of 1’33”825 to beat second placed Lando Norris by just 11 thousandths of a second. The two British drivers were the only ones to get under the 1’34” barrier.

Subjects of King Charles III were definitely the dominant force, as third fastest was George Russell, 0”190 off his Mercedes team-mate. These three also topped the time sheet in the first session, although on that occasion Russell was second ahead of Norris.

Six teams are represented in today’s top ten: the aforementioned Mercedes and McLaren, plus Ferrari, Alpine, Haas and Racing Bulls. A surprising omission is Red Bull with Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez 17th and 19th respectively.

The first free practice session saw 18 of the 20 drivers use both the Soft and Medium compounds. The only exceptions were the Red Bull pair who chose to focus entirely on the C5, using two sets. In the second session, the Hard again failed to show on track, confirming the teams’ plans to keep both available sets for the race. There was just one red flag period, a very different scenario to this time last year, caused by Alex Albon having to park his Williams at the side of the track with a technical issue. Apart from Albon, all drivers worked through the usual FP2 programme, finding the best set-up for both qualifying and over a longer distance, especially evaluating the behaviour of the Medium tyre. Hamilton and Magnussen were the only ones to do a long run on Softs.

Lewis Hamilton – P1 in FP1 and FP2

“I felt really good out there today. I think that is the first practice day this year that we’ve been consistently strong, and the car has felt quick throughout. I am really enjoying driving this track and it was nice to put together three good, competitive sectors over the lap.

“Despite topping both sessions, it is difficult to know exactly where we are in the competitive order with everyone running different fuel loads and run plans. Our long run pace didn’t look quite as good as our speed on the single lap. We therefore have work to do overnight to try and improve that without compromising our speed for qualifying. I’m hopeful we can still be in the mix tomorrow; I will get some good rest tonight and come back strong.”

Simone Berra – Pirelli Chief Engineer

“It was a very productive day, because the drivers were able to run continuously for all of the available two hours, gathering plenty of information and data on how the cars and tyres are behaving on an unusual track and in very different atmospheric conditions to normal.

“Obviously, the track was very dirty and performance improved dramatically the more the cars ran. The same will be true for the rest of the weekend, as is always the case on street circuits, especially those such as Las Vegas and Monaco, where the roads are reopened to normal traffic once the day’s track action is over. It’s hard to imagine that the level of grip, that was very low today, will stabilise: it will improve constantly, even over the course of the race. We saw a significant improvement in lap times compared to last year: Hamilton’s 1’33”825 is almost one and a half seconds quicker than Charles Leclerc’s 2023 time of 1’35”265 and only just over a second off the Monegasque’s pole time of 1’32”726.

“As for tyre behaviour, it should be stressed that the Hard looks like being the compound best suited to the race, paradoxically because nobody ran it today. As regards graining, the very low temperatures saw it appear on the Medium and Soft, especially across the front axle, but from what we have seen today, it was only on the surface of the tyres, therefore without having much effect on wear. In these conditions, the cars suffer mainly with understeer and one of the key points of the weekend will be to balance the set-up as well as possible. Also to be kept in mind is how much the front tyres will cool down on the longest straight: today we saw an average drop of around 35 degrees Centigrade at the braking point for turn 14.”