F1 Las Vegas GP: Mercedes remains fastest as Russell tops red-flagged FP3
George Russell ensured Mercedes claimed a clean sweep of Las Vegas Grand Prix Formula 1 practice sessions with the fastest time, as a late red flag truncated the hour-long running.
The Briton claimed a 1m33.570s in the final 10 minutes of the session, which went unbeaten as Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin ground to a halt on the exit of Turn 12 to bring out a pause in the session.
A red light remained on by Stroll’s T-cam as his car appeared to shut down, which required time to clear to ensure the marshals could wheel the car away to safety. This left just a minute in the session’s run-time when it was eventually resumed, so there were no further improvements.
In a quiet first 15 minutes, Sergio Perez was the only driver with a time on the board; the Mexican remarked that the circuit was “nowhere” in terms of grip versus the end of Thursday’s FP2 session.
His medium-tyre lap was easily beaten by Yuki Tsunoda’s effort on softs, which began a long period of continual track evolution as the circuit again needed to come to the drivers.
Oscar Piastri then drew the times into the 1m35s, which prompted a subsequent battle over top spot between Charles Leclerc and Kevin Magnussen.
Thursday practice leader Mercedes then resumed its grasp at the top, as Lewis Hamilton set a 1m34.565s, which Russell beat by 0.09s on his follow-up effort. Hamilton returned the favour, but Russell made his way back to the top.
Max Verstappen briefly held top spot after spending most of the session floundering on the medium tyre with minimal grip – a scenario he rendered ‘undriveable’ – and the Dutchman posted a 1m34.137s lap, noting the improvement.
But this was swiftly beaten as the rest of the field started to open up their performance runs; Carlos Sainz captured a 1m33.918s, but Russell finally beat Hamilton’s FP2 benchmark with a 1m33.570s.
Piastri got ahead of Sainz to go second fastest, while Lando Norris was fourth fastest behind the Ferrari driver. Verstappen’s effort was good enough for fifth, as Hamilton did not get a late time on the board before the red flag.
Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto put their Williams cars in seventh and eighth, as Magnussen and Pierre Gasly completed the top 10.