The Scuderia Ferrari HP drivers completed a total of 98 laps on the first day of free practice, with Lewis running 43 and Charles 45, the Monegasque having to park his SF-25 in an escape road right at the end of the second hour with a steering wheel problem. The team ran two of the three dry weather compounds that Pirelli has brought to Las Vegas.

FP1: Charles and Lewis got through their planned programme, running two of the three available compounds. The Strip Circuit track surface was particularly dirty, offering very low grip, not helped by the low temperatures. This all made for a very rapid evolution of lap times. Both drivers ran with a low fuel load for most of the time, switching to race configuration only in the final part of the session, refitting the Medium tyres used at the start of the hour.

FP2: The session started on a damp track, so all the drivers waited a few minutes before heading out of the garages. Once again, the track evolved very quickly and lap times dropped accordingly with every passing lap. With 20 minutes remaining the session was stopped for around 10 minutes because it was reported that a manhole cover on track had come loose. At this point, neither Charles nor Lewis had been able to put in a quick lap on the Soft tyres. With seven minutes remaining, the session resumed: Charles had the aforementioned problem with the steering wheel and parked in an escape road. Shortly after that, the red flags came out again for the same manhole cover problem and the session came to a premature end.

Charles Leclerc: Our pace was strong today and I think we are in a relatively good place. That said, our competitors are strong and we have to wait and see how qualifying will play out. It will be tight, so I hope we can build on the positive day we had today and be in the fight for a top position tomorrow.

Now, it's all about trying to anticipate the conditions we will find in qualifying and start the day on the right foot.

Lewis Hamilton: FP2 was a good session. We made some strong changes and the car felt a lot better than it did in FP1, and even if the results don't show it yet, I'm feeling quite positive. It was a bit unfortunate not to finish a lap on the Soft tyre, and with the issue with the manhole cover, no one really managed to get any long runs in today. Tomorrow looks wet, so it's going to be a challenging day, but I'm feeling good about it.

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