Tyre puzzle: what will decide the fight for pole position in Las Vegas. Tyre warm-up challenges, cold track temperatures and setup choices will shape the Las Vegas F1 qualifying battle.

Tyre preparation in the cold Las Vegas night appears to be one of the main themes ahead of qualifying. The evening of free practice did not provide a clear hierarchy of performance, instead returning an overall picture of close gaps among the front-running teams. Everything remains open going into qualifying, where preparation is being played out on two fronts. The first is the difficulty of defining a setup for the rest of the weekend with limited information on race pace, combined with the need to find the correct strategy to bring the tyres into the right temperature window for a push lap.

Between qualifying and the race, European Friday sees teams working in the simulator to search for a setup suitable for a very unconventional track like Las Vegas. Everyone’s goal is to find a synthesis between the different setup philosophies tested on the two cars, an approach followed for example by Mercedes, as confirmed by Andrew Shovlin, the team’s trackside engineering director: “We had two quite different setups between the cars in the second session. Overnight we will work to analyse these differences and understand which solutions we want to carry into FP3.” It is a decision that must also be made with the race in mind, without having been able to complete meaningful long-run simulations. The short stints completed in the first practice session showed a certain amount of front-axle graining, although less impactful than last year thanks to the higher mechanical robustness of the 2025 Pirelli tyres. Nevertheless, teams will still have to worry about protecting the front axle, adjusting the balance accordingly, but much will depend on the track evolution. As Leclerc observes, “now it’s about anticipating the conditions we will find in qualifying.” Easier said than done, because while the rapid evolution of the track should increase grip and further reduce graining, a likely rain shower would once again reset the asphalt conditions. Understanding what scenario Saturday will bring looks almost like a gamble, perfectly in theme with Las Vegas, which is why many teams may have to react on the fly to how the track presents itself in FP3.

The unknown of new tyres

The other major topic of Las Vegas qualifying will be managing to make the tyres work properly, something Red Bull has struggled with in recent events. This is indeed Max Verstappen’s main concern: “The balance of the car today was fine. I think we still need to improve a bit and extract more grip from the tyres.” Gianpiero Lambiase also emphasises the importance of this: “As always on this track and in these conditions, bringing the tyres into the correct operating window turns out to be a challenge, but it is one we need to win, since that is where the biggest gains on the stopwatch can be found.” The second practice session saw drivers string together consecutive laps on medium tyres, giving them enough time to bring them up to temperature. It will be different in qualifying, when the difficulty will be having the tyres ready from the very first attempt. This is a particularly complicated task in Las Vegas, where the smooth asphalt, the absence of fast corners and the low-downforce wings generate little internal heat in the tyres. Added to all this are the low Nevada nighttime temperatures, which in FP2 dropped to 14°C ambient and 17°C on track. As if that were not enough, the more than 2-kilometre straight on the Strip alone causes a drop of over 40°C in the front tyres, compromising the braking attack. Keeping the front axle in temperature will be one of the keys to qualifying, on a circuit where, as Stroll highlights, “everything revolves around confidence under braking.”

Strategies for qualifying

The difficulty over a single lap will not be heating the tyres enough, but doing so while balancing the temperatures of both axles, pushing enough to activate the front without overheating the rear. The fight for pole will largely be decided by the strategy for preparing the new tyres, choosing how much to push and in which parts of the track, but especially whether to complete one or two warm-up laps. These choices intertwine with the timing of leaving the garage, with the dilemma of going out first and having a clear track to freely warm the tyres, or waiting in the pit-lane queue at the risk of letting them cool, but benefiting from maximum track evolution. In this case, however, the risk of encountering a yellow flag would increase, which would significantly compromise the session. The choice will depend heavily on what is at stake, with each team deciding how much it wants to place on the table depending on whether it has everything to lose or everything to gain.