Lewis Hamilton finished seventh and George Russell eighth in Saturday night’s inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix.
The team opted to split our tyre strategy with George lining up P3 on the Medium tyre, with Lewis P10 on the Hard compound.
George held position of the line but Lewis was unfortunate to be tagged by the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz. Whilst he avoided damage, it did cost him several positions.
After an early Safety Car period, both drivers focused on tyre management with George switching to the Hard tyre on Lap 15.
Lewis was making forward progress but contact with Piastri gave him a puncture that frustratingly he had to complete a full circuit with. When he re-joined, after switching on to the Medium tyre, he was last of the 19 runners.
On their new tyres, both were showing strong pace but as Verstappen fought with George, there was contact between the two. George would receive a five-second time penalty for the incident and under the subsequent Safety Car, both drivers took another set of the Hard tyre.
With good pace, George moved up from P9 to P4 on the road; Lewis from P17 to P8. With George’s penalty applied, that left our duo in P7 and P8 in reverse order from how they finished on track.
The battle for P2 in the Constructors’ Championship will go down to the final race in Abu Dhabi; our advantage over Ferrari now four points.
