Luke’s Weekend Take – Las Vegas GP 2024

Heading now to the Saturday sessions where we still keep getting reports from Liam Lawson that the track is still quite slippery in the opening 10 minutes. We get confirmation of this when we see Lando Norris have a bit of a slide at Turn 7 and have to cut the chicane after he controlled the spin but had to back out of his fast lap. At Red Bull we hear Verstappen once again saying that he is struggling with the car saying the fronts are dead and the rears are on the way. We see a few replays of Max on different occasions with him locking up the wheels and taking to the runoffs to avoid a crash. So much so that he came on the radio saying that the car is undrivable and if he stays out, he will end up crashing, at this point the team asks him to pit for the change of tyres.

It wasn’t till there was 15 minutes left on the clock when we see Red Bull come out on the soft compound, where the rest of the teams have been out for a while and this was quite concerning as it meant that they won’t get that much practice and data on this compound. However Max was able to go fastest on his second push lap as on the first lap he had to back out, immediately he reports that the grip is way better now.

With 7 minutes left on the clock we see Lance Stroll pull to the side as he had a complete loss of power as his steering wheel went off and so did his car. The Red Flag comes out as the Marshalls weren’t able top push the car away properly as the green light on the car to indicate that it is safe to touch was still red. This brought out the Red Flag out and it basically meant that the session was over. The session did go green at the end with about a minute and a half on the clock and all drivers went out to get a practice start apart from Sergio Perez as he seem to have missed the green lights in the pit lane as took him too long to get out. In the end we see George Russell topping the leaderboard followed by Oscar Piastri and Carlos Sainz.

With FP3 concluded, we head now to qualifying for the final showdown ahead of the race to see where everyone will be starting the race on Sunday. We immediately get news at the start of qualifying that Aston Martin are still working on Lance Stroll’s car and it was still all in bits so the likelihood of Stroll getting a lap in during Q1 was not that high. However the mechanics were able to get him out there with 2 minutes left and that meant that Stroll would have a chance to do one push lap in to try and get into Q2. Unfortunately Stroll was unable to get a time good enough to get into Q2 and we end up losing Sergio Perez, Fernando Alonso, Alex Albon, Valtteri Bottas and Lance Stroll at the end of Q1. Perez was the shocker here as he couldn’t find the pace to get a respectful time together.

In Q2 it was mostly all business as usual as drivers were getting their times in until the end of the session where we see Franco Colapinto misjudge the corner of Turn 16 and he clipped his front wing on the apex, and this spat him across the track into the barrier on the other side and destroyed his car. No Red Flag came out as the timer had hit 0 and there was no need to stop the timer as the cars were already heading to the pits. The damage on the Willaims was quite intensive and a whole rebuild was needed on the car. At the end of Q2 we end up losing Esteban Ocon, Kevin Magnussen, Zhou Guanyu, Franco Colapinto and Liam Lawson.

Start of Q3 was delayed due to the amount of debris on track and there was some barrier repairs that were needed due to the force of the impact. Once we got going in Q3 we see the remaining 10 drivers out on track start going round and after the first runs we see George Russell taking provisional pole followed by Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen, Russell on his way back to the pits says he wants to be last out on track for the second runs as the track is ramping up. A replay of Russell’s first lap in Q3 showed us he had a bit of a bump with he wall at Turn 5 and the team were checking out the car if there is any damage.

For the final runs we kept seeing Provisional Pole swapping with new drivers going faster than the last but in the end we see George Russell snatch Pole Position followed by Carlos Sainz, Pierre Gasly, Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen, Lando Norris, Yuki Tsunoda, Oscar Piastri, Nico Hulkenberg and Lewis Hamilton form the Top 10 for the race tomorrow. Pierre Gasly is one to look at with an impressive 3^rd place splitting the Ferraris and worth mentioning Hamilton as he had a moment and couldn’t get a lap together in the end but will be one to look at tomorrow as he might be making some god places.

Who do you think will come out on top in the race? Will Max be able to stay ahead of Norris tomorrow and close off the Championship or will he have to wait another race before he is crowned victorious for the 4^th time in a row? A battle to keep an eye out is the Constructors Championship as Ferrari are only 49 points behind McLaren, and it could get interesting with both Ferraris starting ahead of the McLarens. I think we are in for an interesting race tomorrow. Tune in tomorrow to find out.