22/11/2024
NEWS STORY
The team opened the race weekend in Las Vegas by topping both Thursday practice sessions. F1 returns for the second Las Vegas Grand Prix, kicking off a triple header that culminates in the Abu Dhabi season finale.
The cool conditions of the Nevada desert after sundown saw both ambient and track temperatures hovering in the low teens. The team's focus was therefore primarily on understanding the necessary tyre warm-up for the single lap and management for the long run.
Both sessions saw the team run the Medium and Soft compound tyres on both cars, with Lewis setting the pace in both FP1 and FP2. George also featured near the top of the timing screens, ending FP1 in P2 and FP2 in P3 having encountered traffic on his likely best effort. The team return to the track tomorrow for FP3 and Qualifying around the 6.201km Las Vegas Strip Circuit.
Lewis Hamilton: 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.
George Russell: That was a really good day for us as a team. It is still only practice, but it is definitely encouraging. The car has been working from the off and I felt good behind the wheel. Lewis was on it from lap one and did a great job to top both sessions.
That said, it is a street track and quite a dirty circuit today. As it continues to both clean up and grip up, I am sure it will continue to evolve. It is likely that the times will be three seconds or so quicker come qualifying tomorrow. We will therefore pick through the data overnight to understand exactly why we were so strong and how we can continue to make improvements too. It is clear others will take a step forward so we will have to be at our best if we want to challenge at the front again on Friday.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director: We've had a solid day here in Las Vegas. It's tricky with the very cold temperatures to get the tyres into the window but in relative terms, it looks like we were coping reasonably well. It was encouraging that all our laps on low fuel looked competitive in both practice sessions. The circuit is going to grip up significantly so we need to make sure we can track that with the setup, but so far it does look like we're in a better place than at most of the recent races. It's quite hard to work out where we sit on the long run. We saw a lot of degradation across the field, with cars that pushed harder early on looking poor later in the stint but it's clear that a bit of management is going to be required to look after the tyres on Saturday night.
Check out our Thursday gallery from Las Vegas here.