Ahead of what’s probably the most unpredictable race of Formula 1 2025’s triple-header finale, there was plenty to take from media day at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Here’s what we’ve already learned…
Drivers play Elkann’s ‘hospital pass’ well
John Elkann played a 'hospital pass', to use football parlance, to drivers Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc with his comments suggesting they "focus on driving and talk less" made after the Brazilian Grand Prix.
To extend the metaphor, they both took the ball well, deftly dodged the media pressure and made some space to save Elkann's blushes.
It was all they could really do, given the alternative was to push back against the Ferrari chairman's strange criticism.
Lewis Hamilton peddled the line that "we all need to take responsibility in this team and we all need to play our part", while Charles Leclerc offered up the palpable nonsense that "the messages he [Elkann] wanted to send was a positive one". That was more than Elkann deserved, but it did clear up the mess left by the comments made.
There's nothing wrong with criticising Ferrari's poor campaign, after all, this season started with hopes of fighting for the championship before turning to dust, but targeting the drivers - and unspecified others - was ham-fisted.
Leclerc, in particular, once again found himself bailing out Ferrari, just as he's done so often over the past seven seasons. While question marks hang over Hamilton's performance, albeit in his first season, Leclerc has largely been outstanding this season.
It's hard to imagine that he was so sanguine about the comments privately, despite talking up how constructive his relationship with Elkann is, so you can't help but wonder if that's something that will stay in his mind if and when he weighs up whether to continue to fight for his dream of winning the championship for Ferrari or seek pastures new in the future. - Edd Straw
Hadjar apologised to Lawson
Isack Hadjar said he immediately apologised to his Racing Bulls team-mate Liam Lawson for their “close moment” on the final lap of the Brazilian GP while they were fighting for seventh and eighth places.
“Honestly, I immediately jumped out of the car and came to apologise. It was a bit aggressive,” Hadjar said.
“Looking back at the onboard, just both of us moving in one direction and we got very lucky.
“Also on my side, I should have been a bit more patient and probably get him on the next straight, but I made a mistake and that's it.”
Hadjar was free to race Lawson but apologised for how close he came to wiping them both out of crucial points in Racing Bulls’ fight to finish sixth in the constructors’ championship.
He says it helps maintain a record he’s very proud of.
“Honestly, I never crashed with a team-mate. My whole career. I do take a bit more margin [when racing a team-mate]. It's something you should do.”
Lawson said he “respected” Hadjar for the apology and admitted “if the roles were reversed, I would have gone for the same kind of overtake. You've got to try and get your wheels in front before Turn 1”. - Josh Suttill
Tsunoda’s nervous about his future
Red Bull has said several times that it will make a decision about its 2026 driver line-up before the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
So with that season finale now just two weeks away, that effectively leaves Yuki Tsunoda knowing that any moment now, a call is going to come that will define his Formula 1 career.
Such a thing hanging over you is never easy for anyone to operate under, but what makes this particularly difficult for Tsunoda is that, as he struggles to deliver top-line results for Red Bull, not winning over his bosses risks leaving him out of F1 altogether.
“If I say I'm not nervous, that would be a lie,” he said. “But it's just a similar situation to last year, right? Or again two years ago. So to be honest, I got used to it. That's part of this Formula 1.”
Right now, Tsunoda says it is important he focuses only on improving the areas he can control, and not waste any time trying to alter factors that he cannot influence. - Jon Noble
F1 drivers want guidelines fix
Carlos Sainz issued an impassioned plea to solve Formula 1’s ‘racing guidelines’ issues, defending Oscar Piastri, who he reckons shouldn’t have got a penalty for hitting Kimi Antonelli in Brazil.
“I think we need urgently a catch-up and try and solve it because for me the fact that Oscar got a penalty there in Brazil is unacceptable, honestly, for the category that we are in and being the pinnacle of motorsport,” said Sainz, who has criticised the handling of previous incidents including in Zandvoort, where he had a penalty overturned after review.
Grand Prix Drivers' Association director Sainz added “everyone that has seen racing knows that that is not Oscar's fault at all”, and said there has been “not one but multiple incidents this year" that are “far from where the sport should be”.
Antonelli said Piastri was “wrong” by definition of the guidelines but “maybe it was a racing incident because the situation was tricky. But the rules are this, and that's why in Qatar, we will discuss about it for the future, to try to make it better”. - Jack Benyon
Drivers: Wet Vegas will be 'nasty'
Las Vegas is well known for being a low grip track with cold temperatures and minimal downforce making cars quite skittish even in the dry.
So, as F1 braces itself for potentially its first wet weather session at the venue on Thursday evening - with a downpour expected for FP2 - it is fair to say that drivers are not particularly looking forward to it.
After all, the street circuit is quite fast – with some long straights – and there is not much room for error if there is a misjudgement of a braking zone or a corner.
Fernando Alonso said it was going to be “not fun”, while Lando Norris suggested that things would get “pretty nasty” in terms of what the drivers would be facing.
The only potential good news is that the rain is not expected to last long into the weekend – with current forecasts suggesting it will blow through by Friday morning. That should hopefully leave the race taking place in the dry on Saturday. - JN
An unexpected driver dispute
The award for the most unexpected beef of 2025 goes to Lance Stroll and Franco Colapinto.
Colapinto had been critical of Stroll during and after the Brazilian Grand Prix having seen Stroll clash with Gabriel Bortoleto, then felt Stroll unfairly closed the door on him in battle too.
But while Colapinto attempted to backtrack in the Las Vegas press conference, calling it the “heat of the moment after the race”, Stroll unexpectedly took it a step further.
He took a dig at Colapinto’s record, mentioning a variation of “maybe he should score a point this year” in three separate answers – a reference to Colapinto being the only remaining driver on the grid yet to score – and suggested he’s “frustrated and angry with life”.
Stroll’s not exactly had a banner season himself, although his points record is actually reasonable thanks in large part to opportunistic hauls in Australia, China and the Netherlands.
Still, it’s a curious if low-stakes dispute. And as this is the driver with more Q1 eliminations than any other F1 driver, against the driver in the slowest car on the grid, there’s a chance they come together again before the season is out. - Scott Mitchell-Malm
Antonelli’s lost 2-3 months of progress
Kimi Antonelli starts the Las Vegas event on a high after his full house of second places in both qualifying and both races in Interlagos, which he described as "the first time where I put the full weekend together".
But he also suggested that such a performance could have come a few months earlier but for the confidence-sapping middle stages of the season, struggling with the Mercedes rear suspension upgrade misstep.
"Definitely," he said when asked by The Race if, without that disruption to his season, he could have turned in an Interlagos-style performance earlier.
"I've lost a good two, three months of progress. I struggled with the rear end. I struggled more than George [Russell] to adapt to my driving style and it's just been a difficult period, because I just kept losing confidence, driving stuper-tense and really struggled to make progress."
The troubles started with the introduction of the new rear axle at Imola in May. Although it was taken off the car for Monaco and Spain, it reappeared in Canada. Although Russell won in Montreal with Antonelli third, this was a track where the instability problem caused by this spec didn't really show up.
Therefore, Antonelli, with his more attacking driving style, struggled again once it was back on the car for subsequent races - as did Russell. It was removed for the Hungarian Grand Prix in August, with Antonelli's form picking up - although he doesn't believe it really started to come together until a couple of races later in Azerbaijan.
To his credit, Antonelli also admitted he could have adapted better, but was very clear that it cost him momentum in his rookie season - leading to a run of seven events where he only scored once, albeit the 15-point haul in Canada.
"Obviously, if I was able to either adapt better, or I would have gone back earlier to the suspension, [it] probably would have been a bit different," he added.
"Probably I would have been able to have momentum already in the end of the European season or halfway through it, and probably would have been able to get this result much earlier.
"But of course, it's easy to say now, but I definitely feel that period I really struggled to make any progress as a driver and then once we went back on the old suspension again, I can regain the confidence.
“Now we've got three races left, and important to finish on a high." - ES
