The Las Vegas strip is meant to be a place of flashing lights and full-throttle entertainment, but Friday night’s second practice session delivered something very different. Instead of an uninterrupted fight for pace, F1 was once again forced to deal with a drain cover incident, and not once, but twice.
Still, right in the middle of all the chaos, Lando Norris put his foot down and made sure his name stayed at the very top of the timing sheets.
An F1 Practice Session That Went Off Script in Las Vegas
FP2 at the Las Vegas Grand Prix began with light rain. For the first five minutes, not a single driver was willing to be the first to test the track. It took a while for the grip to improve, but once it did, the times began to accumulate quickly.
Charles Leclerc looked strong early as he posted a solid 1:34.802s benchmark from the earlier FP1 session, but then Oscar Piastri came through and beat that in FP2. More drivers joined the timing sheets as the track rubbered up, and suddenly, everyone was pushing hard on their medium tyres.
After Leclerc laid down a quicker 1:33.763 that seemed likely to stand, Antonelli jumped ahead with a soft-tyre run, though his moment was short-lived as Norris eclipsed them both by 0.03s to take P1.
Just when the session was heating up, it was abruptly derailed when the first red flag came out with 21 minutes to go after a marshal reported a loose drain cover at Turn 17, prompting Race Control to call all cars back to the pits for inspection; the track briefly went green again, but only for a few minutes, before a second red flag was issued when officials observed the same drain cover shifting under passing cars.
Lando Norris Holds His Lead
Because of the double red flag interruption, no one was able to rechallenge Norris’ lap, while Antonelli stayed second and Leclerc kept his strong medium lap in third. Nico Hulkenberg finished fourth, ahead of Isack Hadjar and teammate Liam Lawson, who was only 0.008s behind him.
The interruptions also cut into valuable race preparation time and didn’t provide drivers with the long-run information they were looking for. Leclerc had an even tougher end to the session when he was told not to change gears because of a suspected gearbox issue, which forced him to stop behind the barriers at Turn 5 before the final red flag.
However, Norris continues to prove why he has become a favorite on the track. Even in a messy session that barely ran cleanly, he stayed focused, got the job done early, and protected his place at the top without needing more track time. The Las Vegas Grand Prix certainly started with more headaches than expected, but for Norris, FP2 was another race.
