2 weeks Ago By Michelle
Lewis Hamilton set the pace in a Mercedes 1-2, a whopping 0.4s up on George Russell in Practice One for the Las Vegas GP where drivers struggled with low grip. Meanwhile, the deck may be stacked against Lando Norris in Sin City as he trails Max Verstappen by 62 points, but he kept his hopes alive as he finished P3 with the Red Bull driver fifth fastest.
The Formula 1 drivers took to the Las Vegas street circuit on a chilly evening in Sin City, Liam Lawson reporting that it felt like he was “driving in the wet” it was that slippery with the track surface not only cold but also dusty. Max Verstappen dubbed it “driving on ice” with the drives notably braking early at Turn 14 to avoid sliding into the wall. Kevin Magnussen took the fight to F1’s frontrunners in the opening 10 minutes, P1 with a 1:40.
4, 1.1s up on Lewis Hamilton with Verstappen third. 15 minutes in, only the Alpine drivers didn’t have times on the board as they opted to wait for their rivals to clear the track.
Finally out, Esteban Ocon radioed in that he’d never known grip so low. 👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head qualifying record between team-mates 👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates There were issues at Aston Martin as Fernando Alonso came in for a brake duct change while Lance Stroll’s AMR24 was surrounded by a wall of green as the team worked on the floor. Clearing the dust off the racing line, but only marginally, the times fell with the Mercedes team-mates trading P1s ahead of Charles Leclerc.
Hamilton lowered the benchmark to a 1:36.9. Oscar Piastri suffered an unusual problem as he pulled into the pit lane and told McLaren that his car “won’t switch off”.
The team managed to resolve the issue and he was pushed back into the garage. Making the switch to the soft Pirellis, Leclerc went quickest followed by Carlos Sainz before Lando Norris pipped the Ferrari team-mates with a 1:35.9.
Verstappen went sixth, 0.8s down. He upped his pace, closing the gap to Norris to six-tenths but remained P6.
Hamilton came through with a late lap to take P1 with a 1:35.001 with Russell second. As for the title rivals, Norris was third while a late burst from Verstappen saw him finish P5, but only 0.
08s down on Norris. 1 Lewis HAMILTON 1:35.001 2 George RUSSELL +0.
396 3 Lando NORRIS +0.953 4 Charles LECLERC +1.006 5 Max VERSTAPPEN +1.
037 6 Carlos SAINZ +1.217 7 Fernando ALONSO +1.261 8 Oscar PIASTRI +1.
450 9 Pierre GASLY +1.477 10 Sergio PEREZ +1.535 11 Kevin MAGNUSSEN +1.
810 12 Lance STROLL +1.816 13 Alexander ALBON +1.947 14 Esteban OCON +2.
151 15 Nico HULKENBERG +2.199 16 Valtteri BOTTAS +2.764 17 Franco COLAPINTO +3.
024 18 ZHOU Guanyu +3.349 19 Yuki TSUNODA +3.573 20 Liam LAWSON +3.
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