Ferrari are flying but cruel luck has already hurt their chances against Red Bull

Nearly 600 days and half a billion dollars after the grand announcement of Formula 1’s newest and most hyped grand prix, drivers were finally let loose around the Las Vegas Strip Circuit for the first time in an official practice session.

Just eight minutes later, all running around the newly-certified FIA Grade One race track was halted, bringing first practice to an end after lasting for less time than drivers received during an emergency acclimatisation session at the Qatar Grand Prix one month prior.

Thankfully, the commitment and hard work of an army of professionals ensured that second practice eventually got underway, albeit after fans had been told to leave, in the early hours of Friday morning. An extended 90 minutes of running saw the field cover a combined 5,000 kilometres of vital data-gathering around the newest circuit on the F1 calendar.

But what was learned from that hour-and-a-half and what does Friday’s practice running suggest about what fans will see from Formula 1’s first midnight qualifying session?

Ahead of the weekend, there were many unknowns about the Las Vegas circuit, but a handful of factors were commonly recognised: It would be very fast. It would be very cold. And it would be very low in grip.

They were right about it being fast. Top speeds during the session clocked over 340kph – more than seven times over the Strip’s standard 30mph speed limit and without a single objection from the local Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

However, temperatures were not quite as chilly as many had feared. Ambient temperatures remained around 14 degrees in the 2am air and the track temperatures remained static around 16 degrees. That was a small mercy for teams and drivers, who could run direct comparisons between compounds and set-ups on their cars to see how the three tyre compounds responded.

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As for grip, there was little to go around. Although nothing near as difficult as many drivers have experienced before in their careers or even during this season, it was little surprise when even the likes of Max Verstappen complained about the low level of grip over the radio on their first laps around the circuit. Verstappen was one of 10 drivers who was recorded to have run off track at some point during the session, joining at least six other drivers by failing to make the apex of the tricky left-hander of turn 12 leading onto the Strip and having to swing his car around the spacious run-off to right his car.

Unlike many of their rivals, the Red Bull duo of Verstappen and Sergio Perez ran on the medium compound for their first run of the extended session, switching onto the softs later on. The Ferraris instead began their session running three separate sets of soft tyres, with the fastest times for both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jnr coming from their third sets. Leclerc ultimately posted the day’s quickest time with a 1’35.265, going half a second quickest on his best lap than the rest of the field.

“It looks good for now,” Leclerc said. “We look quite strong for now.

“It’s difficult to understand exactly where we are in race pace, but in terms of quali pace we seem strong. However, we still have to work on trying to come forward for tomorrow – but it’s a good start.”

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There were many eye-opening things about Leclerc’s quickest time of the day. After so much talk about heating up tyres prior to the race weekend, what was perhaps more interesting was not his fastest time, but his flying lap before that. Around the same point in the session, Verstappen, Perez, Sainz and Leclerc all headed out on fresh soft tyres. While the former three all improved their best times with push laps straight after an out-lap, Leclerc took a second lap to warm up his new rubber. After pushing on the third lap out of the pits, Leclerc went quicker than all of them, including being around a tenth up on the three in the opening sector.

If that suggested that taking a little more time to get tyres up to temperature was worth the investment, the fact that Lewis Hamilton bailed out of a push lap attempt after a single out-lap while reporting his rear tyres were not ready could be another sign that the best times on fresh tyres could be on the third lap, not the second.

Although Leclerc ended his quickest lap of the day half a second up on the rest of his rivals, he made up the bulk of that time entering the sequence of corners between turns seven, eight and nine which will likely become know as the ‘Sphere section’. By braking much later and harder into the tricky curved entry of turn six, he managed to carry more speed into turn seven and then out of turn eight too, allowing him to gain a lot of tenths of his competition.

Down the long Strip straight, Leclerc continued to gain time on Verstappen thanks to a straight-line speed advantage of 4kph on the Red Bull. Verstappen was slower down the Strip than his team mate, suggesting he either was running slightly more wing than the sister Red Bull, or was not running his power unit to the same potential.

Leclerc’s impressive pace was mirrored by team mate Sainz, who was the closest driver to his faster team mate at the end of the 90 minutes. Typically, Ferrari might be feeling emboldened by this showing, with their low-downforce strengths from previous rounds like Baku and Monza appearing to be reflected in what many expected would good track for them in Vegas.

However, nothing ever seems to be that simple when it comes to Ferrari. Frustratingly, Sainz will be doomed to start Sunday’s grand prix – sorry, Saturday’s grand prix – 10 places lower than where he qualifies at midnight. Most infuriatingly, it will be for a reason that neither he nor his team had any realistic control over.

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“We seem to be on the competitive side this weekend and I’m looking forward to tomorrow,” Sainz said after practice. On the negative side, we have been given a 10-place penalty for Sunday after the manhole cover damaged, amongst other things, my battery and we had to replace it.

“I honestly cannot understand it and I think an exemption to the rule should have been considered given what happened, but we’ll have to deal with it.” It’s a bitter blow for Ferrari as they appear to be the sole team able to offer a challenge to Red Bull thus far.

McLaren, who have held that position at so many rounds since the summer break, did not factor at the front throughout the session, with Lando Norris admitting his team were “a long way off where we’ve been the last few weekends, but probably where we expected.” Mercedes were satisfied with their first two sessions of running, but they need to find a lot more speed over a single lap if they want to snatch a top five grid position for either Lewis Hamilton or George Russell at this rate.

The stage, then, is set for Verstappen to once again shatter all hopes of his rivals, secure yet another pole position and crush Leclerc’s hopes for another time in 2023. Verstappen may not have featured at the very top of the times, but all signs point to Red Bull focusing very much on their longer run pace – which seemed as strong as to be expected from the world champions.

But with the Las Vegas Strip Circuit still yet to reveal all of its secrets at this all-new event, only a true gambler would be willing to bet where the chips will fall come qualifying.

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Combined practice times

P.	#	Driver	Team	FP1 time	FP2 time	Gap	Laps
1	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1’40.909	1’35.265		43
2	55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	1’45.824	1’35.782	0.517	43
3	14	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin-Mercedes	No time	1’35.793	0.528	40
4	11	Sergio Perez	Red Bull-Honda RBPT	1’46.793	1’36.085	0.820	40
5	77	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’47.147	1’36.129	0.864	40
6	1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Honda RBPT	1’44.397	1’36.183	0.918	41
7	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Haas-Ferrari	1’43.446	1’36.489	1.224	37
8	18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin-Mercedes	No time	1’36.496	1.231	42
9	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1’48.513	1’36.663	1.398	46
10	23	Alexander Albon	Williams-Mercedes	No time	1’36.688	1.423	44
11	4	Lando Norris	McLaren-Mercedes	1’48.947	1’36.864	1.599	36
12	63	George Russell	Mercedes	1’45.497	1’36.890	1.625	41
13	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	1’44.261	1’36.917	1.652	41
14	81	Oscar Piastri	McLaren-Mercedes	No time	1’36.987	1.722	37
15	10	Pierre Gasly	Alpine-Renault	1’48.253	1’37.134	1.869	38
16	31	Esteban Ocon	Alpine-Renault	1’45.365	1’37.241	1.976	42
17	22	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri-Honda RBPT	1’45.908	1’37.412	2.147	46
18	24	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’48.822	1’37.656	2.391	41
19	3	Daniel Ricciardo	AlphaTauri-Honda RBPT	1’48.650	1’37.680	2.415	44
20	2	Logan Sargeant	Williams-Mercedes	No time	1’38.140	2.875	42

2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix

• Tost blames track inspection oversight for Sainz’s damage in Las Vegas
• Hard to repeat “rare” combination of factors behind Vegas shunt – Norris
• Las Vegas Grand Prix “got a lot more hate than it deserved” – Sargeant
• Williams’ “incredible” Vegas qualifying made us “poor” in race – Vowles
• Piastri is first rookie to take two fastest laps in a season since Hamilton

Browse all 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix articles