F1 drivers wary of “insane challenge” of wet Las Vegas GP practice

Several Formula 1 drivers have voiced their concerns over the prospect of wet practice at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, with rain predicted to hit the track for Thursday practice.

Las Vegas, along the wider Clark County, has been dealing with torrential rainfall in recent days, with the National Weather Service launching a flood alert on Tuesday night.

The intense Tuesday downpour flooded some streets around the Nevada capital but didn’t cause any disruptions to the 6.2km street circuit itself. But while sensationalist reports of the race weekend being jeopardised are wide of the mark, the prospect of more rainfall hitting Las Vegas on Thursday isn’t exactly welcomed by F1’s drivers.

The risk is the most acute for Thursday night’s FP2 session, with the FIA’s official weather service from Meteo France predicting a 40% chance of precipitation. That’s up from 20% for FP1 as well as Friday’s FP3 and qualifying, while Saturday’s night race is expected to remain dry.

The city circuit is known as an ice rink at the best of times – even in dry conditions. Adding rain to the mix, which would be a first for the event, is not a prospect any driver relished when asked on Wednesday.

“It’ll be a very spicy session for sure,” said Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda. “All the drivers have never driven here yet [in the wet], so I think it’ll be interesting who’s going to adapt quickly to that condition.

“Also, in these very cold conditions with intermediate, the [tyre] blankets are not as warm as before, so I think it’ll be very tricky even to generate temperature.”

Championship leader Lando Norris, whose McLaren car tends to work well when intermediates are brought into play, said Thursday practice could get “nasty” and pose “an insane challenge” in the wet.

“I think it’ll be an incredibly difficult track in the rain – yeah, pretty nasty, I think,” he said. “It’s going to be a hell of a challenge. Obviously not a lot of room for error – quite tricky and quite quick in terms of being a street circuit.

“You’ve got the white lines, all the paint, which is pretty horrible at times when you’re in the car. It will be a pretty insane challenge if it stays wet – especially if it doesn’t dry very quickly either because of the temperature. So excited for both, but I prefer if it’s dry.”

The Las Vegas circuit, which incorporates a large chunk of the famous Strip, is a combination of long straights and slow 90-degree corners, which is making it notoriously difficult for drivers to generate enough heat into the Pirelli tyres as it is.

Furthermore, temperatures are projected to hit a chilly 10C, which is a “few degrees below average” for the time of the year. That means that whoever is able to bring and then keep Pirelli’s tyres in the right operating window, as a dominant Mercedes managed in 2024, will start the weekend on the front foot. That applies both to qualifying, when generating enough heat in the tyres poses a big challenge, and to the race when tyre graining could become a crippling issue.

“This is probably the slipperiest track that we go to.” Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton added. “In terms of the grip we had in the last couple of years, getting the tyres working here was very, very tough in these cool conditions.

“Obviously, these tyres have a very narrow working window and that would be even worse when it’s on inters or extreme wets. But I’m down for the challenge if we’re faced with it.”

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– The Autosport.com Team