Norris tops session disrupted by loose manhole cover

Championship leader Lando Norris said he would be "fighting for pole" in qualifying at the Las Vegas Grand Prix after setting the pace in practice on the first day of action.

In a session interrupted and then curtailed by a loose manhole cover, the McLaren driver was 0.029 seconds ahead of Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli, with Ferrari's Charles Leclerc third, 0.161secs off the pace.

Norris' team-mate and title rival Oscar Piastri was 14th and 0.891secs off Norris, but that was not representative as the Australian did not get a clean run on the soft tyres because of the red flag for the track problems.

Norris is 24 points ahead of Piastri with three races to go and can put himself on the brink of the title with a strong result this weekend.

The Briton, whose team struggled in Las Vegas last year, said: "Always tricky here. We have a better feeling in the car than what we had last year and that was felt already in lap one of today.

"Some good feelings. Of course not a lot of running, not really any high-fuel running, but the pace is clearly there.

"It's pretty tight between a lot of people and many people didn't get their laps in."

Piastri was one of a number of top drivers who did not set representative times on the soft tyre owing to the interruptions, along with Red Bull's Max Verstappen, Mercedes' George Russell and Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton.

Piastri was two places behind Norris in the first session, which the McLarens finished sixth and eighth, and 0.192secs adrift for pace, continuing the trend of recent races.

But the Australian, who has not beaten Norris since he won the Dutch Grand Prix at the end of August, said: "I feel OK. P1 was pretty good. Some things to work on but overall I felt like it was a pretty good session.

"But P2 I did two laps the whole session, so difficult to know exactly where we sit. Clearly the car's got decent pace."

The loose manhole cover could mean a long night for race officials.

The problem emerged at Turn 17, the final corner, about 20 minutes before the end of the session.

The site was inspected and the session restarted after a 15-minute delay, with governing body the FIA saying it believed the cover was "in a suitable condition to resume the session".

But officials who had stayed at the location to monitor the situation saw the cover moving as cars passed over it when the session resumed and the red flag was thrown again.

The problem revived memories of the first Las Vegas race in 2023, when Carlos Sainz's Ferrari was wrecked by a loose manhole cover, the problem was found to be repeated around the track, and practice did not finish until 04:00.

The delays and disruption meant a sense of the competitive picture was only partially formed, especially as there was no time for the race simulation runs that normally take place in the final minutes of the session.

For what it's worth, Sauber's Nico Hulkenberg was fourth fastest, ahead of the Racing Bulls of Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson.

Mercedes' George Russell was seventh fastest, with Williams' Alex Albon, Verstappen and Hamilton completing the top 10.

Antonelli continued the strong form that saw him score a second-place finish in Brazil two weeks ago for Mercedes, who started the weekend favourites after Russell's dominant victory last year.

But Russell cautioned against presuming the team could repeat the same feat this year.

"We're in the mix," he said. "There were a lot of expectations on us coming into this weekend but we've changed the car a lot since last year and it's definitely made it a better car over the course of a season but maybe hasn't made it as competitive as we were here 12 months ago.

"But we're still there or thereabouts. It was close. Lando was quick, Verstappen and Leclerc were quick in P1, Kimi was quick, so it's going to be close."

Verstappen was fourth fastest in the first session, 0.307secs off pace-setter Leclerc and highly unusually behind team-mate Yuki Tsunoda. He said: "It has been OK, just difficult to understand what to do with these interruptions.

"We still need to improve a little bit of find a bit more grip. The track's improving every session and we will try to focus on that seeing how far we can operate the tyres for qualifying and the race."

Verstappen was also tipped strongly coming into the race meeting as he won at Monza and Baku in September, both tracks with similar characteristics to Las Vegas, high-speed straights into big braking zones and slow-speed corners, with relatively low grip.

But Verstappen said the circuits were less comparable than appeared at first glance.

"It's a lot colder here and the surface is very slippery so you cannot compare them to other tracks just because it's low downforce," he said. "So it's not a given you will be quick here."

Shortly before the second red flag, Leclerc's Ferrari stopped on track with what appeared to be a gearbox problem.