Lewis Hamilton completed an opening-day clean sweep at the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix as he went fastest in the second practice session.
Mercedes looked strong in FP1, with Lewis Hamilton leading team-mate George Russell by three and a half tenths.
Hamilton confirmed that pace by going fastest in FP2 with a 1:33.825s lap-time, beating McLaren’s Lando Norris by 0.011s.
READ MORE – Lewis Hamilton heads opening Las Vegas session
With the cold Vegas temperatures cooling further for FP2, and the Las Vegas Strip Circuit still lacking sufficient grip, the 20 F1 gladiators emerged from the pits for a second attempt at running laps.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was vocal about the insufficient grip, and he duly ran deep at Turn 14 after Vegas’ super-long back straight.
Sergio Perez had the same issue, running deep into the Turn 14 run-off also.
Problems were more severe for Alex Albon, whose Williams was resigned to the garage with a fuel system issue.
Verstappen continued to look at odds with his Red Bull, pushing his car off-line and into the dust at Turn 4 and needing to bail before clashing with the wall.
Leclerc too was flirting with danger, coming within centimetres of the outside wall at Turn 12.
With 22 minutes left on the clock, the first red flag of the weekend was called and Albon’s session became a double disaster.
With his first turns of the wheel in the session coming after a prolonged period in the garage, his FW46 conked out after a few corners and his session was well and truly done.
After a brief four-minute delay, the session resumed for approximately 18 minutes of action.
With that concluded, Hamilton could look back on a fine day’s work in Las Vegas with a promising outlook on the rest of the GP.
Norris too, looked comfortable with second and Russell confirmed Mercedes’ Friday pace with the third fastest time of the second practice session, just under two-tenths off of Hamilton’s time.
The much fancied Ferraris heading into the event were fourth and fifth with Carlos Sainz leading Charles Leclerc, who was roughly half a second off of the ultimate pace.
Pierre Gasly looked to boost Alpine’s confidence with a sixth-placed effort ahead of Haas’ Kevin Magnussen and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.
The three-way fight for sixth in the Constructors’ Championship between Alpine, Haas and RB looks tough and it was confirmed with Nico Hulkenberg and Yuki Tsunoda in ninth and 10th.
Sauber, with a new floor, saw encouraging signs with Valtteri Bottas in 11th, leading Esteban Ocon and the Aston Martin duo of Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso.
RB’s Liam Lawson finished in 15th, ahead of Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu.
It was a session to forget for Red Bull, with no representative run set on the soft tyre, resigning Verstappen and Perez to 17th and 19th respectively.
Things weren’t much better for Williams, with Franco Colapinto 18th and the hamstrung Albon propping up the field.
READ MORE – F1 2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix – FP2 Results
