Lewis Hamilton warns that starting from the middle of the grid at the new Las Vegas Street Circuit leaves him exposed to a first-lap collision.
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The inaugural race at the circuit has drivers concerned about the lack of grip on the grid and the short run into turn one, both of which increase the risk of incidents at the start.
“It’s going to be super-tough,” Hamilton said, after qualifying in what will become tenth on the grid once Carlos Sainz Jnr’s penalty is applied. “It’s short down to turn one and I’m in the thick of it, so that’s not the best place to be.”
From his mid-grid position he acknowledged there is “a lot of work to do” and admitted uncertainty over how much progress the team can make during the race.
“We’re all running low wing, so there’s going to be significant degradation. There may be more wear than we expect — no one’s run the hard tyre in race conditions yet,” he added.
“Max [Verstappen] has two sets of hards and two sets of mediums; we have one medium and two hards. It’s going to be a long race and it will come down to managing degradation.”
Hamilton also said qualifying was hampered by a lack of confidence and grip in the car, missing out on Q3 by under three-hundredths of a second.
“I just struggled,” he said. “Yesterday felt better and I was more competitive. We made some overnight changes and it didn’t feel great today. The car is on a bit of a knife-edge.”
George Russell qualified the other Mercedes fourth on the timesheet, a position that becomes third once Sainz’s penalty is applied. Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said Russell felt more comfortable with his car setup than Hamilton did.
“Lewis felt like he’d lost a bit of confidence in the car. We backed off some of the changes going into qualifying, but the setup ultimately didn’t work for Lewis and he got bumped in Q2 by a very small margin. George had a better balance and managed three solid runs,” Shovlin explained.
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