2025 Las Vegas GP raceday Preview

Now, it is time for James Punt’s 2025 Las Vegas GP raceeday preview. Rain ruined the chances of our qualifying bets, hopefully things go better for us on Sunday.

2025 Las Vegas GP raceday

We had four ante post bets for this weekend and it is fair to say that it hasn’t gone well so far. The wet weather for qualifying really didn’t help. The forecast suggested the chance of any significant rain for qualifying was slim, but it was wet enough for the full wet weather tyres to get used, and that is a very rare thing these days. The forecast for the race is for a dry one, and cool at 14 degrees.

The conditions, the lose drain covers, red flags, yellow flags and so on have produced a very disjointed weekend. Drivers could be right at the back in one session and at the top in the next.

We had Leclerc for fastest qualifier and he was going well in day one, first and third, but in the wet he was all over the place. Fifteenth in FP3 and only ninth in qualifying, spinning off on his final qualifying lap.

Antonelli Woes

We backed Kimi Antonelli to win the race and he was doing OK, until qualifying when he had a time deleted and ended up going out in Q1. He will start seventeenth and it’s safe to say that bet has sunk without trace. Oliver Bearman to finish in the points is looking less likely after he could only qualify in fourteenth, but we did have one good result. Carlos Sainz qualified in third place!

However, we are talking about Williams here, and nothing goes smoothly. Alex Albon had looked set for a good qualifying session, after being third in FP3, but he stuffed it into the wall and went out in Q1. Sainz ended up third but had to see the stewards for rejoining the track in a dangerous manner in Q1. I was expecting to wake up to the news that he was to get a grid penalty, but no, he escaped punishment. How? I ‘ve no idea. It looked like a slam dunk to me, but I’ll take it.

Norris On Pole

So, who looks like they can score some points, get a podium or win the race today?

Lando Norris starts from pole position. I didn’t expect that, nor did he. How much of that result was down to the conditions or how much to the car actually being much better suited to the track than McLaren led us to believe. Very wet conditions mean the cars are slower, a lot slower. It is a bit of a leveller and the driver plays a bigger part. Norris is a good wet weather driver, as is Verstappen, and they filled the front row.

The second row has Sainz and Russell. As usual, I have backed the wrong Mercedes driver. Russell has to be considered for the win. The Mercedes has been quick all weekend and Russell was looking like a strong contender for pole, but his car developed a problem with the power steering in Q3 and he could not push as hard as he would have liked on his final run. There is more pace in there. I can’t let him go off unbacked and we can still get e/w terms the top three.

2025 Las Vegas GP raceday Tip: 0.5 point e/w George Russell to win @ 11.00 with Betfair, Skybet

We are on Sainz for a points finish. I had considered a top six finish, but he has only achieved that feat once, and that was when he also qualified near the top in Baku, where he started second, and finished third. He may find it hard to keep Russell at bay, and maybe Piastri, but he does look good for a top five.

Oscar Piastri only manged to qualify fifth, four places back from his teammate and Championship rival. The Aussie has just lost his mojo. He has seen Norris completely overturn his 34-point lead after the Netherlands GP and Piastri is now 24 points behind. A 54-point swing in seven races, and we only have three left, including this one.

Fifth is as high as Piastri has been this weekend and he is very much on the back foot. He was unlucky to catch a yellow flag on his final run, but he was never on the front row pace. He has finished fifth for the last three races and this may be another.

farcical Ferrari

Ferrari have cocked it all up again. Leclerc starts ninth, Hamilton in twentieth and last place. Ferrari are known to have problems with plank wear in races and while Leclerc has picked up seven podium places in 2025, their race pace is rarely electric.

If it is dry, he can make progress, but the Ferrari did not behave itself in the wet conditions yesterday. Leclerc even manged to stall the car mid lap at one point. Hamilton and his race engineer seemed to have another miscommunication at the end of Q1. Hamilton crossed the line just in time to have another lap, but there was confusion as to whether he had or not, he lifted off the throttle and that was that.

Through The Pack

Hamilton can have some fun coming through the pack. Last year he started from tenth and finished second in the Mercedes. In 2023 we saw Piastri finish tenth having started from eighteenth, and Stroll finished fifth from nineteenth and Ocon finished fourth after starting sixteenth, so it is a track where ground can be made up.

In the midfield, there has been one team that have consistently been putting both cars in the top ten. The Racing Bulls. Hadjar has been top ten in every session and his eighth in qualifying was his worst placing of the weekend. Lawson was thirteenth in FP1 but otherwise he has been top seven and starts sixth.

He did that in Austria and finished sixth. In Sao Paulo he stated seventh and finished seventh, so his race pace has been good, better than Hadjar, who has struggled to live up to his qualifying pace. He has turned his thirteen Q3 appearances into nine top ten finishes. Hopefully he makes that ten.

2025 Las Vegas GP raceday Tip: 1 point Both Racing Bulls to finish in the points @ 2.80 with Unibet

Sticking with the same team and risking the double backed curse, I do like the look of Unibet’s Group 2. In this Group, Lawson is grouped with Antonelli, Alonso and Hamilton. He has been faster than Alonso in every session and the Aston Martin tends to go backwards as the weekend goes on.

Antonelli has the faster car, but he starts back in seventeenth place. He is the dangerman but starts eleven places back. Hamilton starts fourteen places back and his race pace might not be as good as the Racing Bulls’ this weekend. It looks like Antonelli vs. Lawson and I will take a chance on the Kiwi.

2025 Las Vegas GP raceday Tip: 1 point Liam Lawson to win Group 2 with Unibet @ 4.80

Alex Albon was second in FP1, third in FP3 and Sainz qualified third. That is genuine pace from Williams. Even starting from sixteenth, Albon has very decent claims of a points finish. I was considering a 2 point stake, but it is Williams we are talking about and Albon is on a five-race pointless run, but this track suits the car very nicely. It is just a question of him not screwing it up, as he did in qualifying.

2025 Las Vegas GP raceday Tip: 1 point Alex Albon to finish in the points @ 6.50 with Betvictor

-JamesPunt