Hamilton finds a spark in Vegas: “Happy” with Ferrari after stop-start Thursday
Lewis Hamilton’s first year in red hasn’t always screamed harmony, but under the neon glow of the Strip he finally sounded like a driver who’s found something he can work with. After a messy, red-flagged Thursday in Las Vegas, Hamilton called his Ferrari “pretty decent” and, more tellingly, said he’s happy enough to resist the usual overnight setup surgery.
“It felt pretty decent,” he said after FP2. “We improved the car in P2 and I was feeling strong in Sector 1… yellow flags and the red flags just got in the way, unfortunately, but everyone’s in the same boat. I got some good learnings out there, and I’m excited for tomorrow.”
That excitement hasn’t been a frequent visitor this season. Hamilton’s adaptation to the SF-25 has been complicated—he even described the car’s preferred technique as “alien” earlier in the year—and the results have reflected that. But since the summer break he’s been operating much closer to Charles Leclerc’s bracket, and the confidence has slowly returned. Vegas, for now, has nudged it along.
Thursday’s second session was scrappy across the board, interrupted by stoppages and compromised laps as the field tried to squeeze performance into short runs. Hamilton didn’t get the late flyer he wanted, and on the timesheet he landed in familiar mid-top-10 territory. But underneath that, the story inside the cockpit was brighter.
“P1 generally felt good; I just didn’t get a lap in,” he said. “Same thing in P2… we probably won’t make many changes tonight because I’m happy with the car.”
That line will perk up a Ferrari pit wall that’s spent too many nights this season chasing a moving target. Vegas is a maddening place to tune a car anyway—low downforce, long straights, massive braking zones and big tyre warm-up headaches in the cold. Hamilton called it “very, very slippery” early on, though the surface ramped up quickly once rubber went down. If the predicted overnight chill sticks, qualifying could be a game of chicken with tyre temperatures and traffic.
Ferrari, for its part, still needs something to show for the grind. The Scuderia remains win-hungry deep into the final stretch of 2025, and the calendar isn’t offering many more swings. The Strip Circuit at least gives them a shot: straight-line efficiency matters here, and if Hamilton’s first sector bite is real, it hints at a platform that’s finally letting him attack corners without the rear end arguing back.
There’s also the small matter of intra-team pride. Hamilton trails Leclerc in the standings and won’t be part of the title noise, but the seven-time champion—now fully ensconced in Ferrari red—has been edging into a better rhythm since the break. That’s been the tension all year: flashes of harmony, brief and promising, followed by weekends when the SF-25 demands more compromise than he’s willing to give. Vegas, for now, feels like the former.
The next 24 hours will tell us whether the optimism survives the qualifying games. Expect slipstream trains down the Strip, out-laps run at walking pace, and radio calls laced with frustration as drivers search for clean air and tire temp. In that chaos, a driver’s comfort with the car can be worth a row or two on the grid.
Hamilton, notably, isn’t in a tinkering mood. That may be the biggest headline from Thursday. Ferrari haven’t always found a setup window that stays open between sessions, and the temptation is always to fiddle. If they leave it largely alone and the track comes to the SF-25, Hamilton’s talk of feeling “strong in Sector 1” could translate into something far more tangible when it counts.
It’s been a season where Hamilton has had to work to find the light. In Vegas, of all places, he sounded like he’d caught a glimpse.
