Grip was at an absolute premium when the clock started in Las Vegas. A peppering of dust obfuscated the racing line in the very early stages of FP1 for the Las Vegas Grand Prix but, even when removed by continued running, the circuit continued to give the drivers little to work with.
Street circuits are never entirely festooned with grip but, when allied to the cold temperatures, it seemed inevitable that there would be a difficult task in getting the tyres to truly bite into Las Vegas Strip. And so it proved; there were no horrendous rear-end snaps throughout practice, and no real car/wall (or drain) interface across the two hours of running – instead, it was the front end that refused to dig in under braking.
Mercedes seemed to have the best run of anyone in Thursday’s sessions. Lewis Hamilton headlined both sessions, as both he and George Russell appeared to be well placed to attack the times on soft tyres throughout. But as the team itself knows too well, it must preserve that pace into the next sessions; there are prior examples of Mercedes springing out of the blocks in FP1 and FP2, only to turn up in FP3 with a complete desertion of its previous day’s performance.
The usual contenders all appear to be in the reckoning too, but each to varying extents – some have their roots in better qualifying pace, while others expect to be stronger in the race.
The story of the day
After Hamilton admitted that he thought about walking away after a fraught Brazilian Grand Prix, Mercedes’ pace at the start of the Las Vegas ‘weekend’ must have vindicated his decision to shut those feelings of discontent out. A 0.396s advantage over team-mate Russell, secured on his final lap of FP1, ensured Hamilton would lead a Mercedes 1-2 after the opening hour of running.
Of course, FP1 is largely unrepresentative; track conditions notwithstanding, there was also further set-up work to carry out as each team wondered how to balance a low-downforce arrangement with a quick tyre warm-up phase – since the two rarely go hand in hand. But Mercedes nonetheless looked quick, especially after a couple of preparatory laps to build heat into the C5 Pirellis.
Mercedes has started on the front foot – but can it retain that advantage over the rest of the race weekend?
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
In that session, Mercedes’ nearest rival was McLaren. Lando Norris‘ best lap of FP1 was 0.953s off the pace, although this was largely down to the…
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