After 18 months of waiting, Las Vegas’s famous neon lights provided the backdrop for practice for the Las Vegas Grand Prix – with the drivers hitting the track at 2.30am local on Friday for an extended 90 minutes of running. Ferrari set the pace, with the leading Red Bull only fourth – but does this mean the Prancing Horses are the ones to beat?
One practice and one qualifying session does not large quantities of data make, as the old saying goes. But there’s still some useful nuggets that we can gather from Friday’s running at Interlagos to build a picture of how the rest of the weekend – featuring the Sprint Shootout, Sprint and Sao Paulo Grand Prix – could go. Let’s start crunching the data.
While Max Verstappen stole the show once more in Mexico, overall Formula 1 witnessed one of its tightest fields of the season in Friday practice to suggest not only could every segment of qualifying be tight but the race might be a humdinger, too. But who looked like they had the edge after two hours of practice? And who might spring a surprise?