What we learned from Thursday practice at the 2025 Las Vegas GP

All bets were off at the conclusion of Las Vegas' second practice session. The roulette wheel landed on red twice in the final 20 minutes of the session, slashing the available low-fuel, soft-tyre running as a manhole cover at Turn 17 was suspected to have slipped its moorings. Much to your relief, dear reader, we'll leave the mixed gambling metaphors there for this weekend.

Although a 15-minute inspection of the reportedly-loose drain cover by race control hadn't detected anything immediately wrong, barely four of the remaining six minutes of the session had run before proceedings were closed out again with the second red flag; movement had been detected as the cars ran over the offending cover. Expect Nevada's local welders to do a bit of business overnight to give the other manhole covers around the circuit the once-over...

The session was also drained of an opportunity to build a picture of the race pace as it stands. FP1 offered some data, but track conditions were far from those experienced towards the end of FP2 - thus, the laps accrued in the first stage of practice are of little indication. A layer of dust around the circuit compounded an already low-grip surface, leading to considerable evolution through the opening hour of running, and the improvement to the track surface only continued through FP2.

Despite a trickle of rain between the sessions, the circuit was in better shape during FP2 and Lando Norris' benchmark, a 1m33.602s, was 1.2s faster than Charles Leclerc's benchmark from FP1. Leclerc's running came to an early end at the close of second practice, having suffered a gearbox problem in the brief running between red flags, but the second one at least ensured he was not forced onto the back foot.

Although there's not much cold, hard data to go on, we can at least pick through the FP1 and FP2 leftovers and determine the emerging picture from the cars' patrolling of the Mojave.

Graining a problem in FP1, but teams find some relief in FP2

Norris headlined FP2 after struggling with graining in FP1

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The two quirks of Las Vegas are thus: a low-grip track, and cold temperatures as night falls over Nevada. The circuit dropped below 18C in FP1, and only got chillier later into the evening; as such, it's incredibly difficult to get the tyres warmed up and to keep them in the working window consistently.

Thankfully for the drivers the grip had improved in FP2, meaning that sliding was not quite so much of a problem as it had been in the opening hour of running on Thursday. Both of those aforementioned quirks tend to contribute to graining; low-grip leads to sliding, which leads to uneven temperatures between the tyre surface and the carcass. As such, the rubber on the surface of the tyre begins to pill and reduces the available grip, leading to sliding...and thus, the cycle continues.

While it's possible to drive through it and clear up the graining if the drivers' inputs are a bit more careful, it's difficult to do that in a circuit like Las Vegas. Instead, graining is likely to compromise the heavier braking zones, leading to a plethora of lock-ups - and thus exacerbating the issue of inconsistent tyre temperatures.

Ferrari and Red Bull looked more settled from the get-go, particularly Leclerc as he was consistently at the top of the order amid the ever-changing FP1 session

The teams seemed to get a bit of a handle of this during FP2, particularly McLaren - which appeared to suffer most with graining among the top four teams. Increasing track grip did alleviate some of the more glaring issues, but it's also possible to tinker with the set-up to load up the tyres a bit more and ensure a more consistent heating effect through the Pirelli compounds. It's more difficult to do that with aero balance at a circuit like Las Vegas, as it often produces more of a compromise; teams want to trim their wings out to a level similar to those seen at Monza, and dialling in more rear end to mitigate sliding will confer an unwanted drag penalty.

Mercedes also seemed to find its feet a little bit more in FP2. It was expected that the silver cars would impress in Las Vegas, owing to its predilection for cooler conditions, but it hadn't been able to leap out of the blocks in quite the same manner as it had in 2024. Instead, it was Ferrari and Red Bull that looked more settled from the get-go, particularly Leclerc as he was consistently at the top of the order amid the ever-changing FP1 session.

Could Ferrari be on course for a first 2025 win?

Leclerc looked strong throughout practice, despite a late gearbox failure

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Leclerc's gearbox issue at the end of FP2 can be discounted, as it was likely an old unit and will be replaced overnight. Although the Monegasque was unable to log a proper time on softs before the first red flag of the second session, an encouraging sign of his pace had lain in his time on the C4 mediums before the mid-session changeover to the C5 tyre.

Although Norris and Andrea Kimi Antonelli moved into the top two positions following their low-fuel runs, Leclerc's time on the mediums remained good enough for third and was only 0.161s off Norris' timesheet-topping effort. The Ferrari was particularly strong in the Turn 14-15-16 cluster of corners at the end of the Strip, demonstrating the hallmark compliance that the red cars have tended to come equipped with over the past few years.

Straightline speed is also solid on the Ferrari; while acceleration out of the corner might pale versus the McLarens - GPS data of Leclerc's lap on mediums against Norris' benchmark confirms this - the Ferrari topped out with a 4kph advantage over the McLaren. That deficit under traction might also be compound-sensitive, although the one lap Leclerc got out of the soft tyres still demonstrates a small issue here. Leclerc hadn't gone faster on that soft-tyre run due to a small mistake in Turn 7.

Whether Ferrari can hang onto that potential is another story entirely; the Prancing Horses have often found time out of disappointing Friday sessions, but prosperous FP1/FP2 sessions tend to lead towards a drop in performance ahead of the Saturday (or in Vegas' case, Friday) running. Still, Leclerc should at least be in the mix for pole if Ferrari can continue to find improvements - but it might have a few cars to worry about.

McLaren and Mercedes found progress through the two sessions, but both still have more to find. While Mercedes might have expected more, McLaren was not expecting to have a particularly strong weekend in Sin City; the MCL39 thrives in finding a tyre advantage in warmer conditions, and Las Vegas' chilly nights cannot necessarily provide that.

Mercedes hasn't carried over 2024's Las Vegas form, but it should still be in contention

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Weaknesses over the past two years at the circuit has prompted the Woking-based team to look more inwardly at what it can do to prevent that this year, but it's still not a venue that fits the car on paper.

George Russell believes that Mercedes is "in the mix", but says that stronger, all-round car this year has perhaps lessened its peak effectiveness at this circuit. "There was a lot of expectations on us coming into this weekend. But we've changed the car a lot since last year. And that's definitely made it a better car over the course of the season. Maybe hasn't made it as competitive as we were here 12 months ago, but we're still there or thereabouts."

Traction out of the lower-speed corners seems to be the main mitigating factor for the RB21; while it seems to have strong balance in allowing the drivers to attack the corners, it takes longer for the Red Bull drivers to corral the rear on the exit

And then there's Red Bull. Okay, one more tortured gambling pun, if you like: the team didn't quite show its full hand in FP2 after both cars sat in the top four during the opening session. Max Verstappen didn't get a chance to deliver a soft-tyre run in second practice and thus his ultimate pace is an unknown, although one would suspect that he should be in the pole battle.

Traction out of the lower-speed corners seems to be the main mitigating factor for the RB21; while it seems to have strong balance in allowing the drivers to attack the corners, it takes longer for the Red Bull drivers to corral the rear on the exit versus the McLaren.

While the Red Bull top-end speed is very strong, it needs to find more rear-end grip to ensure it can deploy that speed - rather than use it to recover any lost lap-time from the traction phases.

Verstappen's pace was masked by the late red flags in FP2

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