Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris looked to be the biggest winners from F1 practice on a cold Thursday night in Las Vegas, as title leader Max Verstappen and Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez struggled amid plummeting track temperatures.
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Hamilton pipped Norris by just 0.011 seconds for the fastest lap in FP2, with his teammate and fellow Brit George Russell rounding out the top three in a strong rebound for Mercedes, who struggled woefully last race in Brazil.
Sky Sports’ Jenson Button was full of praise for the seven-time world champion Hamilton, noting his regular ability to come out swinging with his back to the wall.
“This is typical Lewis … A bad weekend, and he just comes out of the blocks and gives 100 per cent, and just shows us how good he is,” Button said.
“It’s great to see, it just really is.”
And for as much pace as Mercedes brought in Sin City, Red Bull appeared to lack it — with the expected champion for 2024 Verstappen finishing 17th in the classification.
The Dutch superstar looks set to become just the sixth person in F1 history to win four titles, but he nor Perez (19th) could crack the code early doors this weekend in a perplexing turn of events.
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Perez — who is under immense pressure to hold his spot at Red Bull heading into 2025 — had far from an ideal run on the track Thursday night, but admittedly neither completed a clean run on their soft tyres between red flags; forcing Red Bull to look more favourably towards longer runs.
Verstappen was one of several drivers unsatisfied with the lack of grip on the Vegas circuit, with Franco Colapinto and RB Honda’s Liam Lawson feeling similarly.
Neither Lawson or Colapinto have previously raced on the Las Vegas track before today.
Aussie Oscar Piastri was solid throughout the session, and finished just inside a second behind Hamilton to end the night in eighth place.
It was a far more grim night for Alex Albon and Williams however, with fuel system issues initially forcing him into the pits — before bringing about a red flag with just under 23 minutes to spare in the second practice.
The 28-year-old was the only driver not out on the track in the final minutes of practice, and only managed to complete three and a half laps.
In a small positive, rookie teammate Colapinto managed to finish — giving the Williams analysts something to work with heading into the next phase of the weekend.
Given the pit loss time is quite high in Vegas, all signs point towards a one-stop being the dominant strategy on Sunday for the main race; barring any Safety Cars.
McLaren (Norris 2nd, Piastri 8th) and Ferrari (Carlos Sainz 4th, Charles Leclerc 5th) were strong throughout, and will walk away confident they can all make a strong case to take out the main race.
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