Temperatures for this weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix are set to drop into the single digits (celcius) and average at around 14°C (57°F). This will impact several factors over an F1 car’s performance, but particularly its tyres which have a precise working window.
At temperatures outside this working window the performance of the tyres suffers, with the cold leading to reduced grip, increased graining and a speeding up of the tyre wear process. Las Vegas’ circuit characteristics only exacerbate this – down its long straights the tyres will lose temperature and these lead into hard braking zones, increasing the risk of sliding into the close barriers or locking up – making wear and performance over the lap unpredictable.
Pirelli anticipate that warming the tyres up slowly and bringing them into the working window will be difficult, especially across the front axle and over one fast, timed lap in qualifying. To help mitigate this, Pirelli have brought their ‘standard’ street circuit tyre selection – the softest range of C3 as the hard, C4 as the medium and C5 as the soft – as was the case in 2023.
This will mean however that we’re likely to see two-stop strategies across the board come the Saturday night grand prix, which was the winning strategy last year for Max Verstappen who began on the medium for a traction benefit off the line, swapping to the hard and then running a second hard to the end.
A one-stop could also be feasible for teams and drivers who can manage their tyre wear well, but Pirelli predict that those who opt for this will need to warm the tyres gradually and prolong their life over a long first stint as the undercut is unlikely to be effective given the difficulty in warm-up.
Ferrari are one team who feel their tyre warmup may be a compromise to their potential in Las Vegas, but with strong predicted race pace given their strength at low downforce but slow speed corner circuits such as Monza, where they’ll sit in the order versus their competitors in Red Bull and McLaren is hard to predict. The “clash” or balance of these two factors, in Carlos Sainz’s words on media day, is where teams like Ferrari will either find their performance or challenges for this weekend.
As is typical for a street circuit, there’s a risk of yellow flags, safety cars, or red flags that is made even higher by the cold track temperature, tyre performance, low downforce setups and how they interact to impact grip. How teams respond to these could make or break their qualifying efforts and race strategies, promising a treat of a weekend for fans when it comes to action, strategy and battles on track and in the championships.
