Las Vegas Chaos, Loose Manhole Covers And Lando’s Charge: A Wild Start To The Grand Prix Weekend

If you’re looking for unpredictability, raw adrenaline, and the kind of motorsport drama that makes the sports market and the best sport blog sphere buzz all night, the Las Vegas Grand Prix delivered it in full force—on day one.

Championship leader Lando Norris kicked off the weekend by lighting up the timing sheets, finishing the curtailed practice session 0.029 seconds ahead of Mercedes’ sensational young gun Kimi Antonelli. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc completed the top three, but the real story wasn’t just pace. It was chaos. Vegas chaos.

Practice was interrupted not once—but twice—thanks to a loose manhole cover doing its best impersonation of a landmine on Turn 17. The metal plate shifted under the force of passing cars, forcing red flags, restarts, and eventually an early end to the session. Bad news for engineers. Terrible news for drivers chasing setup time. Excellent news for neutral fans who live for the drama.

Norris, who is leading the championship by 24 points with just three races to go, looked sharp and confident. McLaren struggled in Las Vegas last year, but today felt different for the Brit.

“We had a better feeling in the car than last year… even from lap one,” Norris said, despite the limited running. “The pace is clearly there.”

His teammate and title rival Oscar Piastri wasn’t as fortunate. The Australian couldn’t complete a clean run on soft tyres because of the interruptions. His P14 standing? Completely unrepresentative. His first practice pace? Sharp. His second practice? Two laps. Total. You can’t read anything from that.

Meanwhile, the loose manhole cover has set the stage for a long night for race officials—sparking déjà vu of 2023’s Vegas debut, where Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz destroyed his chassis on yet another rogue cover.

Elsewhere on the grid:

• Sauber’s Nico Hülkenberg surprisingly slotted into P4

• Red Bull’s Max Verstappen felt the conditions were tricky and unusually slippery

• Mercedes’ George Russell warned that last year’s dominant form might not repeat

• Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc ended the session with his car stopping on track, possibly a gearbox issue

With qualifying coming at 04:00 GMT, one thing is clear: the competitive picture is still blurry, the track is improving every lap, and Las Vegas is determined to keep everyone guessing.

At Sports Market International, where we break down every twist, turn, and unexpected manhole cover in the world of sports, one thing is certain—this weekend is already elite content.

Strap in. Vegas hasn’t even started playing its real cards yet.