The second practice session for the Las Vegas Grand Prix was red flagged twice on Thursday evening due to concerns over a loose manhole cover near Turn 17.
The stoppages had shades of a similar incident at the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix two years ago, during which a water valve cover came loose on The Strip and damaged the underside of Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari.
The 2023 incident resulted in the first practice session ending early and second practice being delayed until the early hours of the following morning.
Thursday’s first stoppage came as a precaution after a trackside marshal reported concerns that a manhole cover appeared to be loose.
The suspension to the session allowed race control personnel to visit Turn 17 and inspect the manhole cover, with the FIA issuing a statement 15 minutes later that it was “confident everything is in a suitable condition to resume the session”.
However, in the closing stages of the session a second red flag was flown amid more concerns over the manhole, which ultimately timed out second practice.
“Some race control personnel remained on-site when the session was restarted,” an FIA statement said after the second red flag. “They reported that the manhole cover was moving as cars passed over it, which led to the session being ended under red-flag conditions. Further inspections are underway.”
Loose drain covers are not unusual at street circuits and tend to come unfixed due to the forces generated by the underside of F1 cars, which are designed to generate low pressure and suck the car to the track.
Although the premature finish to Thursday’s second practice marked the end of F1’s schedule for the evening, F1 Academy was able to run its qualifying session 32 minutes after the end of FP2 with just a two-minute delay to the scheduled start time.
