It hasn’t been the dream Ferrari debut Lewis Hamilton was hoping for. Yes, he won the China sprint race, but a persistent and unresolved aero issue with SF-25 since then has caused a steep decline in performance. And with no further updates planned since the midpoint of the F1 season, Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton, and Charles Leclerc have been limping from one Grand Prix to the next—showing flashes of speed but never a true breakthrough.

Las Vegas brought yet another demonstration of a seemingly unsettled Hamilton, who was eliminated in a rain-affected Q1 session while the driver he replaced, Carlos Sainz, qualified P3 for Williams. There was a mix-up on Hamilton’s final flying lap: he needed to cross the line before the session ended and had only a few seconds remaining.

The Ferrari pit wall told him to push, but as Hamilton crossed the line, he saw the red lights on the pit straight—a clear indication that Q1 had ended—so he lifted off the throttle. What he didn’t realise was that he had actually crossed the line with 0.5 seconds still remaining and could have completed his final run, likely progressing to Q2.

At the speed he was travelling, it was difficult to judge whether he had crossed the line before the red lights appeared. It was a split-second call, and Hamilton elected to abort the lap, resulting in elimination and last place.

The Ferrari pit wall told him to “push,” but Hamilton, from his perspective in the cockpit, thought otherwise—perhaps wary of picking up an unwanted penalty for ignoring the red lights. It was just one of those days for Hamilton, and he’ll now have to pick up the pieces for the race. His teammate Leclerc fared better, qualifying ninth, but still some way off the pace.

Hamilton later explained:

“I don’t really have words for it. It’s obviously not good enough. I just couldn’t get temperature into the tyres, had a lot of understeer and I think one of my front brakes was glazed so I was really struggling to stop it in the corners.

“It’s very annoying, of course, because in P3 the car was feeling awesome and I thought it was going to be a great day and it turned out to be the worst. It can’t get much worse than that.”

“I got yellow flags in the last corner and coming into Turn 17 there were yellow flags,” Hamilton said, “so I had to have a lift and when I came to the line there was red.”

“It was very slippery and the first set of tyres didn’t work for us and I just struggled to generate the heat in the tyres for some reason.”

“It’s a shame because the guys have done such a great job and the car was feeling awesome in FP3 and I really felt like we had good pace, but then the rain came. There’s not a lot to say, to be honest.”

Lando Norris secured pole, followed by Max Verstappen in second, setting up a potential battle. Verstappen will certainly sense an opportunity for victory, while Norris will likely be focused on keeping his nose clean and avoiding any clash with Verstappen, who has only a mathematical chance of winning the Drivers’ Championship.

Teammate Oscar Piastri, Norris’s championship rival, qualified fifth as he carried his recent dip in form into Las Vegas.