{"id":298549,"date":"2025-11-21T04:33:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T04:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/298549\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T04:33:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T04:33:09","slug":"leclerc-fastest-as-mclaren-dramas-raise-eyebrows-in-first-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/298549\/","title":{"rendered":"Leclerc fastest as McLaren dramas raise eyebrows in\u00a0first\u00a0practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charles Leclerc has topped the opening hour of practice for the Las Vegas Grand Prix as braking issues blighted McLaren\u2019s efforts.<\/p>\n

Title leader Lando Norris was only sixth best, almost five-tenths down on Leclerc, in a session that saw him brush the wall and twice run off the road under braking.<\/p>\n

Ferrari shows early pace as McLaren left with work to do<\/p>\n

The track proved especially dusty as cars first ventured out on track, doing so in diminishing light at the sun set and lights began to take hold.<\/p>\n

As it did, the temperature was dropping, with an air temp of 14.1 and track of 18.6 as running began.<\/p>\n

There was a huge disparity between lap times in the opening moments, with Pierre Gasly logging a 1:41.0s while Gabriel Bortoleto logged a 1:50.4s.<\/p>\n

McLaren was splitting its approach, with Oscar Piastri opting for a lower downforce rear wing versus Lando Norris.<\/p>\n

The 1.9km blast down The Strip forces a compromise on a circuit where, otherwise, drivers would look for high downforce to offer grip through the slow and medium speed corners.<\/p>\n

When Piastri headed out, he did so with his wing coasted in flo vis as the team worked to understand the option fitted to his car.<\/p>\n

Gasly remained towards the top of the timesheets through the opening 15 minutes, improving to a 1:37.990s as he came to grips with the circuit.<\/p>\n

Others also improved, Isack Hadjar and Carlos Sainz both went faster than the Alpine driver, before Charles Leclerc logged a 1:37.407s to top the timesheets.<\/p>\n

He did so on medium tyres, the preferred option for the bulk of the field, with only Nico Hulkenberg (hards) and Fernando Alonso (softs) not on the yellow-walled rubber.<\/p>\n

Gasly\u2019s early confidence saw the Frenchman in the escape round at Turn 12, the left-hander onto The Strip, before performing a neat pirouette to get back on track.<\/p>\n

It came as the circuit was beginning to clean up, with drivers routinely logging faster and faster laps.<\/p>\n

F1 2025: The season\u2019s winners and losers<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0The results of the F1 2025 championship <\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0The updated Drivers\u2019 and Constructors\u2019 Championship standings<\/a><\/p>\n

Still, it was slippery, and a number of drivers skated through the run-off at Turn 7, the chicane around in The Sphere.<\/p>\n

As he did so, Leclerc had lowered the benchmark to 1:35.954s, a five-second improvement on Gasly\u2019s initial effort in just 20 minutes of running.<\/p>\n

The field spread seen initially had reduced significantly, with Oliver Bearman holding the slowest time but just 2.1s away from the top of the timesheets.<\/p>\n

At McLaren, Piastri was the faster of the two, sitting just under 0.5s slower than Max Verstappen, who\u2019d gone fastest on 1:35.776s after 15 minutes, while Norris was 11th best and almost half a second slower than his teammate.<\/p>\n

There was an exchange between Hadjar and Alex Albon, the Frenchman remonstrating with his Williams rival after he was held up.<\/p>\n

That came moments after Lando Norris tagged the barrier at Turn 9, though a comparatively square hit left the team non-plussed by the impact.<\/p>\n

Ferrari took a greater interest in one of Lewis Hamilton\u2019s wheels with suspicion of a damaged rim on his car.<\/p>\n

The squad replaced the tyre set before taking a closer look at the wheel in question.<\/p>\n

On the soft tyres, Hamilton went fastest with a 1:33.561s. Purple through the first two sectors, he gave up time through the final sector, suggesting either an unseen mistake or that the tyres weren\u2019t surviving a full lap.<\/p>\n

That signalled the start of the performance runs, which saw Gasly once again appear towards the top of the timesheets.<\/p>\n

He quickly fell back down the orders as others improved, Leclerc going fastest with George Russell second as Hamilton\u2019s effort left him third.<\/p>\n

Verstappen then went fastest with 18 minutes remaining, logging a 1:35.109s. It stood only until Yuki Tsunoda went 0.038s faster than his Red Bull teammate.<\/p>\n

Hamilton snatched a brake into Turn 12 and elected to bail out of the left-hander, and took to the escape road.<\/p>\n

McLaren was among the last to begin qualifying simulations, though Norris was well down through the first split before going wide at Turn 12 as Hamilton had moments earlier.<\/p>\n

There was clearly more pace in the track, Leclerc improving to 1:34.802s, though it was proving difficult for Norris to unlock as, on his second effort lap, he repeated his Turn 12 error.<\/p>\n

The championship leader\u2019s car sported an unusual aerodynamic measuring device, with a sensor mounted to the front of the monocoque that as not present on Piastri\u2019s car.<\/p>\n

Leclerc\u2019s effort came on a scrubbed set of tyres, suggesting the soft rubber was hanging on and indicated a mistake from Hamilton in the final third earlier on.<\/p>\n

Piastri managed a 1:36.460s with his soft-tyre run, while a somewhat scrappy lap from Norris left him slightly quicker with a 1:35.258s.<\/p>\n

Neither McLaren driver had shone, with the squad hardly featuring towards the top of the timesheets throughout the session.<\/p>\n

Ferrari and Red Bull had, with Mercedes showing for a time, while Gasly and Alex Albon hinted at promising pace for Alpine and Williams respectively.<\/p>\n

Albon rose to second by the chequered flag, just 0.166s away from Leclerc, heading the Red Bull pair of Tsunoda in third and Verstappen fourth.<\/p>\n

The came Carlos Sainz in the second Williams, ahead of Norris, Hadjar, Piastri, Russell, and Kimi Antonelli to round out the top 10.<\/p>\n

Las Vegas Grand Prix, Free Practice 1 results<\/p>\n

1. Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, 1:34.802
2. Alex Albon, Williams, 1:34.968 (+ 0.166)
3. Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull, 1:35.071 (+ 0.269)
4. Max Verstappen, Red Bull, 1:35.109 (+ 0.307)
5. Carlos Sainz, Williams, 1:35.179 (+ 0.377)
6. Lando Norris, McLaren, 1:35.258 (+ 0.456)
7. Isack Hadjar, Racing Bulls, 1:35.299 (+ 0.497)
8. Oscar Piastri, McLaren, 1:35.450 (+ 0.648)
9. George Russell, Mercedes, 1:35.534 (+ 0.732)
10. Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, 1:35.538 (+ 0.736)
11. Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, 1:35.561 (+ 0.759)
12. Pierre Gasly, Alpine, 1:35.589 (+ 0.787)
13. Liam Lawson, Racing Bulls, 1:35.709 (+ 0.907)
14. Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin, 1:35.746 (+ 0.944)
15. Lance Stroll, Aston Martin, 1:35.894 (+ 1.092)
16. Oliver Bearman, Haas, 1:35.990 (+ 1.188)
17. Esteban Ocon, Haas, 1:36.123 (+ 1.321)
18. Nico Hulkenberg, Sauber, 1:36.170 (+ 1.368)
19. Gabriel Bortoleto, Sauber, 1:36.398 (+ 1.596)
20. Franco Colapinto, Alpine, 1:36.758 (+ 1.956)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charles Leclerc has topped the opening hour of practice for the Las Vegas Grand Prix as braking issues…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,818,41955,806,805,803,804,44,85],"class_list":["post-298549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-home-page","tag-las-vegas-grand-prix","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}