Lando Las Vegas! Race 22 takes us to the bright lights of the Strip, a wet and wild Quali session, and a shocking post race ruling that shakes things up dramatically!
- Colby Michaels
- 9 hours ago
- 8 min read
Hello, Zoomies! Besides being the last driver left, are any of you surprised at that opening title in the headline? <grin>, and who is My Driver Pick for this week! :)
No paddock buzz, but the reminder, counting this race, we have three left in the season, and Lando leads by about 30 points over Oscar, with T-Max close behind in 3rd for that Drivers Championship. For those that don't get the T-Max joke, its for Tyrannosaurus Max , cuz he was so far behind in points at summer break, and now for the Papaya Boys, like in Jurassic Park mirrors, Objects do appear closer than they seem, hence, T-Max!
Vegas GP is a street race circuit with night racing, so things can happen! F1 weekend in Las Vegas is also now the highest revenue generator than any other event held in the city, hauling in around one BILLION dollars into the local economy! More here from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelgoldstein/2025/08/29/las-vegas-now-the-formula-one-racing-capital-of-the-world/
Your starting grid- swap Lawson and Tsunoda, and it's Colapinto instead of the casted off Jack Doohan in that 2nd Alpine seat.
There are three practice sessions, each one 60 minutes each. Time does not stop for crashes, red flags , etc.
P1: Early evening as the sun sets, temps in the 50's and chilly! Gotta note, sparse grandstand crowd. Helmet change note: several driver have changed their helmet style, with Lando and Oscar almost have a Wicked theme going, with green and pink helmets, while Lewis has ditched his usual yellow, and has gone for a white and gold sparkles (shining like diamonds under the Vegas lights!). Tyre degradation and graining on this track will see some cars drifting, as the grip of tyre to track is weak. Other then some lock ups into the runoff areas at Turn 7, no incidents.
P2: All of Vegas neon lights are shining bright over the track, and temperature is even chillier, so all that stuff I wrote in P1 definitely applies here. With 20 minutes left, we get a RED FLAG as one of the manholes has come loose between turns 16 and 17! No cars were damaged, but one has to wonder if Carlos Sainz is having flashbacks to the first Vegas GP drive two years ago when a manhole cover tore up Carlos Ferrari at the time! With six minutes left, practice resumes, and on Turn 5, Ferrari's Charles LeClerc steering wheel craps out, so his night is done, and a minute later, another RED FLAG pops up, due to "track maintenance", and that effectively ends a frustrating P2!
P3: It did rain in Vegas earlier in the day, but it has stopped, and is overcast, though parts of the track will be slick! both the air temperature and track temperature are almost the same, in the love 50's- I have not seen that on a track before! Because of the slickness of the track, drivers are coming out on Intermediate tyres! 30 minutes left, and Lando Norris is the first to change over to soft tyres. Oscar Piastri, Charles, George Russell, Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton also venturing out on Soft tyres, as rain appears to be coming in! No incidents, and no rain, but both Papaya boys, Lando and Oscar finish last in this P3. Onto Qualifying!
Q1: 18 minutes. And it is raining- hard! Disclosure:- ESPN jumped in with only 10 minutes to go in Q1! Grr! Most teams went with Intermediate tyres, with only Aston-Martin choosing the Wet tyre, and A/M got it right, as drivers were astro-planing, sliding all over on the track and off the track-YELLOW FLAGS everywhere; this might as well have been Disney's version of CARS on ICE, as there was zero grip to the track. Visibility is awful due to the spraying mists coming from the back of the cars as well ! Other teams learned their lesson and switched to Wets at about the time ESPM decided to share coverage with us! Conditions improved slightly as the rain did stop, but the track had puddles, a mini river at one of the turns, and the track was basically still a slip n slide! In the end, there were no major crashes, except for Alex Albon's Williams car scraping off the right front wing, and Ollie Bearman's Haas car sliding into the barrier with a slight boink on the front nose of the car. Bottom five are: Albon-Williams, Kimi Antonelli- Mercedes, Yuki Tsunoda- Red Bull, Gabriel Bortoleto-Sauber, and Lewis Hamilton, dead last ( a safety cone may have been sucked under Lewis' car). Whew!
Watch just the Q1 part! Q2: 15 minutes. Still a cold and wet track. All drivers start on Wets, but with six minutes to go, A/M's Lance Stroll comes out on the Intermediates, thinking the track is dry enough to use them, but will the tyres heat up in enough time to hit peak performance? Still more YELLOW FLAGS for drivers sliding off into the run-off area (Turn 12 seems to be the culprit in most cases). In the end, your next bottom five are: Franco Colapinto- Alpine, Ollie and Esteban Ocon- Haas, Hulkenberg/Sauber and Lance- Aston Martin, as it was not enough time to warm up those Intermediate tyres.
Q3: 12 minutes. Only a few yellow flags this time, and on the drivers last laps before time expired, the leaderboard kept changing as who was going to take pole position. After all was raced and done, it was Lando on pole! T-Max-Red Bull-2nd, Carlos Sainz-Williams-3rd, Georgie Russell- Mercedes-4th, Oscar- Mclaren-5th, Liam Lawson- Sugar Free RB-6th, Fernando Alonso- A/M-7th, Isack Hadjar-Sugar-Free RB- 8th, Charles- Ferrari-9th, and rounding out the top ten grid, Pierre Gasly- Alpine- 10th.
In a post race interview, Charles went OFF about his Ferrari car ( he also did it on team radio, which was not broadcast due to all the f-bombs!) , saying the team just cannot figure out how to race in wet conditions, and its been this way since he joined the team back in 2019! Not a happy driver!
Left: Lando modeling for British Vogue; right: Ice bath after Singapore GP.
Las Vegas GP: 50 Laps, 17 turns. Vegas is the longest track, almost 2 miles for a lap! Under the bright lights of the Vegas Strip. It is cold both in air and track temperature, both in the low 50's. Lots of stars here for the race, with Beyonce and Jay-Z, Cynthia Erivo and Brad Pitt to name a few; Catherine Zeta-Jones will wave the checkered flag.
I don't think I've mentioned this important rule about tyres and the Grand Prix, which is that a driver must have ONE mandatory pit stop to change to a different tyre. Another piece of the strategy game! For this Vegas GP, most drivers have elected to go with either the Mediums (the top ten on Mediums) or Hards (more grip to the track, which this street track is sorely lacking in), with only Kimi and Mercedes starting on the Softs (this will be key later!) on 17th place. All the glitz and glamour is done, cars are lined up on the grid, and its LIGHTS OUT, and we have Lando take the lead on Turn 1, then make an aggressive lunge to block Max, but Lando overshoots it and is off track as both Max and Georgie pass him; a DOH! moment for Lando there! After only 2 laps, Kimi pits for a set of Hard tyres- very early, will he have to do a 2nd pit stop later in the race due to tyre degradation? Meanwhile, in the back on these first 2 laps, Gabriel's Sauber does a fierce lunge on the inside of Lance's Aston-Martin, and wipes Lance out for our first DNF! Pierre's Alpine got tapped during scrap, and did a 360, clipping Williams' Racing driver Alex Albon, but other than Stroll, all still on track. A Virtual Safety Car (everyone slows down to 40% of speed) is flashed up, because Sugar-Free RB's Liam Lawson's front wing is tearing up his front right tyre, and he needs to get to the pit lane, STAT! That damage happened at the start as Liam took a hard lunge at Oscar; Oscar's car is okay, but Liam's not so much. Will we see penalties?
Wrecking ball Gabriel is out DNF for him, he is also being investigated for causing that crash with Lance. We also find out that Alex has no radio communication with his Williams pit wall! Charles being an animal, is pulling off some sweet overtakes, now in 6th place after13 laps. A nice battle between Charles, Oscar and Isack for 5th for several laps, Charles passes Isack for 5th on Lap 14. Alex clips Lewis, and Alex has to pit ...again to change the front wing, which is on the track, so a Virtual Safety Car is flashed as the marshals go out to clean up the debris. Oh, Kimi has picked up a 5 second PENALTY for a false start at the beginning of the race. Alex also gets a 5 second PENALTY for the Lewis tap scrap! Lap 23, we have Georgie, Oscar, Carlos and Lando pitting to switch to Hard tyres, Max is ahead of Charles by 20 seconds, both have not pitted yet. And Charles pits on Lap 25 and comes out in 9th. Max also pits, and still comes out in first, and is about two seconds ahead of Georgie, Lando in 3rd, Nico in 4th ( has not pitted), Lewis in 5th, Kimi in 6th, Ocon in 7th (has not pitted), Oscar in 8th, Charles in 9th, and Carlos in 10th, at the halfway point.
Lap 31, Nico pits for Hards, Lewis also pits but chooses the Mediums! Lap 35 sees Lando overtake Georgie (at 220 MPH) for 2nd, and 5 seconds behind Max. Williams Racing has told Alex to retire the car, so our 3rd DNF this race. In a battle for 4th place, Kimi ( who has not pitted!!), is defiantly holding off Oscar and Charles for a few laps!
Kimi does hold on to 4th place, but due to the penalty, is dropped to 5th, as T-Max wins the Vegas GP by 20 seconds, Lando in 2nd, Georgie 3rd on the podium! Kimi is being raved about working those Hard tyres for 48 LAPS! Kimi said post-race that for the last 10 laps, each lap he was talking to his tyres to hold on!
Fans voted Max for Driver of the Day, but a lot of fans, myself included, think Kimi deserved that honor- coming from 17th to podium on 48 laps on Hard Tyres!
Now comes the shocking part......My Driver pick curse continues! So, where is my usual podium picture? Well, about five hours after the podium ceremonies, the FIA, as they do after every race, inspected all the cars and found that the wood plank on BOTH McLaren cars decreased in size, in Lando's case, from the regulations size of 9mm to 8.93; and because of that violation, both Lando and Oscar were DQ'ed and get ZERO points!! ( I first found about it Sunday morning, and have been depressed all day! Even as I write this recap! :( {
The streak continues for McLaren as not having a driver place in the top five in Vegas was a harsh way to continue that streak. :(
Take a quick peek at this link to show you where the wood plank is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skid_block
So the updated top 10 for Vegas GP are: Max, Georgie, Kimi (!!!!), Charles, Carlos Isack, Nico, Lewis, Ocon and Bearman (both Haas drivers got in with the Papaya boys being dropped out).
So, going into next weeks race in Qatar, Max is now TIED with Oscar with 366 points, and Lando stays at the 405 points he had when this race started. Qatar will also have the last Sprint race as well.
I want to end on a positive note, and congratulate Doriane Pin, who won the F1 Academy's female Drivers Cup! https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/47070220/mercedes-driver-doriane-pin-wins-f1-academy-title
well written... and great pics of Lando!