Despite converting pole position into its fourth win of 2024, Mercedes returns to Las Vegas taking nothing for granted.

A strong weekend in Brazil saw the German team reclaim second in the team standings, but with just 36 points covering it, Red Bull and Ferrari it knows it has a fight on its hands.

"On track, we've re-established our advantage in the battle for P2," says Toto Wolff, previewing this weekend's race. "We are not taking anything for granted though," he admits.

"We saw across Austin and Mexico just how quickly that gap can disappear," he continues, "and, whilst our performance last year in Las Vegas may have raised expectations externally for this weekend, we are not getting carried away.

"The field is incredibly competitive and it is going to be a battle right until the bitter end in Abu Dhabi. We have three weeks of hard racing ahead to decide who comes out on top and we are ready to get going."

However, this weekend's action takes place two hours earlier than the previous runnings, which could be an issue for the W16 which is known to prefer cooler temperatures.

"I've said let's just keep exactly the same car that we had last year, let's not change it," says the Austrian, "but unfortunately that's not the case anymore. So, we've got to be very analytical of what is the car that we need for Las Vegas, what is the ambient temperature, and can we replicate the kind of performances. But I doubt it.

"We just need to go there open-minded," he admits. "It's a new weekend, and hopefully we're able to perform well."

"I think it's very difficult to have a proper expectation of a performance because if you look at last year and this year, we won in all different races between last year and this year," adds Simone Resta, the German team's deputy technical director.

"It's quite difficult to draw a direct guess between how we were last year and how it's going to be this year," he admits. "We are going into these races as motivated as ever. We're trying to prepare ourselves in the best way. The drivers, they are both quite positive and we'll try to maximise our performance."