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With 22 circuits, there can be a lot to take in, so we’ve organised for you to join us in Lando and Oscar’s engineering briefings, where we’ll walk you through this weekend’s key trackside topics so that you can enjoy the Las Vegas Grand Prix to its fullest. 

There are always unknowns when we arrive at any track, but with this being our first-ever race at the Las Vegas Strip Circuit, there are even more than usual. Temperatures are also expected to be colder than normal in Las Vegas, with an average low of eight degrees Celsius and a chance it could drop to four degrees.  

There are various ways in which these could impact the team, from what we prioritise in practice, to how we set up the car, and what strategy we look to go with.  

Adrian Goodwin will be leading this weekend’s engineering briefing, in partnership with Google Chrome, and he will look to explain the above and how it could affect us. He’ll also give you the lowdown on a brand-new circuit and what we know so far, including its likeness to other tracks on the calendar.  

It’s time to begin. Grab a coffee and follow us through the glass doors and into the Paddock Performance Centre. Take notes if you need them, but please keep them to yourself. 

Engineer: Adrian Goodwin  
Event: Las Vegas Grand Prix
Circuit: Las Vegas Strip Circuit

How much do we have to learn? 

What do we know about the Las Vegas Strip Circuit? Honestly, not a lot! There’s a great many things we need to discover across practice. Running at night, in relatively low temperatures, on a new circuit with a new surface presents us with more questions to which we need answers than would usually be the case. 

The impact of colder temperatures  

This circuit suggested we would run even lower downforce than we use at Monza – but that’s something that will depend entirely on the grip level and, at this stage, that’s a complete unknown. And then, also, how the tyres perform in these colder temperatures.  

Those two issues are firmly linked this weekend. With these downforce levels, much like Monza, the tow won’t be particularly powerful. If everyone settles on the same downforce level, this may well be a difficult circuit on which to overtake, because it’ll be very tough to generate enough of a speed delta. Also, with these skinny wings, the DRS is worth much less than it would be at a high downforce circuit.  

Therefore, the thing more on our mind is that we need to be on a competitive wing level for the end of straight speeds – but at the same time, we’ll need enough downforce load on the car to get the tyres to switch on. It’s a tricky balancing act! This will be the big challenge. 

The colder conditions mean we’ll be running everything fully closed-up, very much the opposite of how the car looked in Mexico, where it was wide-open to maximise cooling. We’ll be figuring out across practice how much engine cooling we need, and looking at options like blanking-off radiators, and also our heating options for the wheels, with seals on the brake drums to retain heat.  

Building up confidence  

With street circuits, you like to give the drivers more laps to get comfortable, and with new circuits, you also like to give the drivers more laps. So, this is a prime example of a track where you would like to build more laps into the practice programme – but doing so is complicated here. 

We’ve never run these tyres in temperatures like this. In the past, it’s something that we would have experienced during winter testing in Barcelona – but with the one pre-season test taking place in Bahrain, it didn’t come up. We’re operating with Pirelli’s softest compounds this weekend, and with those, there is a real risk of graining. It’s a bigger risk on a green track early in the weekend, so going out early comes with a risk of graining the tyres and not learning anything.  

Also, this circuit is quite long, which means it’s very expensive in terms of engine mileage for the number of corners the drivers get to learn. We’ll therefore look for the best track conditions to do our learning, with tyres being the priority.  

Figuring out our race strategy  

We have to bias the programme around tyre-learning. In addition to the risk of the softer compounds graining, there’s a risk of the harder tyre simply not switching-on in the cold conditions. Without understanding those two issues, it’s very difficult to have a strategy model. So, we have the tricky situation of having to learn a lot about the tyres, without using up the tyres such that we then can’t adopt the strategy we decide is preferred. There’s quite a bit of strategic thought involved in figuring this one out!  

Another strategy question we need to figure out is pit-loss time. We’ve got a first read on that from the simulator, but the best read will come from having the drivers attack the pit-entry and exit. So, that’s on the to-do list for early in practice, because if it’s significantly different to what we’re expecting, this also will impact strategy. 

Learnings from the simulator and other questions    

Beyond the tyres, we have the usual work to do with suspension and ride height. The track isn’t a complete unknown, we have a LiDAR scan, which was incorporated into the simulator when the drivers did their preparation. If the scan is accurate, there are some very big bumps halfway along each of the main straights, which look to coincide with the places the track intersects other roads.  

The kerbs are also something we would like to investigate. The circuit bears similarities to Jeddah, with painted entry kerbs where the wall is the limit, followed by the standard, bolt-in type of apex kerb. There is a question to be answered regarding how much of those apex kerbs we can use. It shortens the track distance quite a bit if we can cut the two low-speed left-handers.  

Getting ride height as low as possible is going to be crucial here, perhaps more so than at other tracks, because there will be much less load on the car than usual, and there’s a lot of low-speed corners. So, we’ve got a busy three practice sessions ahead – hopefully, the weather co-operates!  

Briefing complete. Time for Lando and Oscar to head out onto the track and put our hard work to the test.