George Russell accomplished a Mercedes observe clear sweep on the Las Vegas Grand Prix after a late purple flag truncated the ultimate qualifying preparations in FP3.
The frontrunners — bar Russell — had every accomplished one flying lap on contemporary comfortable tire because the circuit started to grip up when Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin switched itself off exiting Flip 12, on the north finish of Las Vegas Boulevard.
The Canadian parked by a niche within the fence, however the automotive’s warning lights instructed the hybrid system hadn’t been safely disabled and the automotive was due to this fact unsafe for the marshals to the touch, necessitating a purple flag to get well the stricken automotive from the monitor.
With lower than seven minutes remaining on the clock, the stoppage successfully ended the session, with working resuming within the ultimate 60 seconds solely to permit for observe begins.
It ensured Russell, who was the one one of many leaders to have accomplished two flying laps, was locked into prime spot with a finest time of 1m 33.570s.
The benchmark was round 0.3s faster than FP2 on Thursday and roughly half a second faster than FP3 final season.
Oscar Piastri, the penultimate frontrunner to cross the road earlier than the purple flag, was second and 0.215s adrift, with Carlos Sainz making it three groups inside the highest three by taking his Ferrari across the monitor 0.348s off the tempo.
Lando Norris, the final of the highest drivers to set a time, was fourth and 0.438s slower than Russell.
Max Verstappen accomplished a herculean turnaround for Purple Bull Racing after having lamented an absence of one-lap tempo on the finish of Thursday observe, his RB20 struggling within the low-grip circumstances.
Adjustments made in a single day appeared to make no significant distinction, with Verstappen complaining over group radio of heavy graining on his front-left tire and on the rear axle.
“The automotive is undriveable,” he reported throughout his opening long-run simulation, and after being informed to proceed he added: “I can’t drive it. I’m going to crash.”
He was introduced in for extra set-up adjustments forward of his qualifying simulation, they usually lastly appeared to do the trick.
His sole soft-tire run put him briefly on the prime of the order, to which he responded, “Grip felt miles higher, significantly better”.
Unable to set a second time, he ended up 0.567s off the tempo.
Lewis Hamilton, who topped each Thursday observe periods, aborted his solely consultant soft-tire run and ended up sixth, 0.771s off the tempo.
Alex Albon, his automotive cured of its Thursday gasoline system points, was seventh forward of Williams teammate Franco Colapinto.
Kevin Magnussen and Pierre Gasly accomplished the highest 10 forward of Nico Hulkenberg in 11, the trio 1.3s off the tempo and cut up by simply 0.025s.
Charles Leclerc was two-thirds of the best way by his first qualifying run and had simply set a purple center sector when the purple flag was known as, leaving him twelfth.
Sergio Perez adopted in thirteenth, although the Mexican had two makes an attempt at a flying lap earlier than the purple flag.
Esteban Ocon was 14th forward of Fernando Alonso, Yuki Tsunoda, Valtteri Bottas, Liam Lawson, Lance Stroll and Zhou Guanyu.
STREETS OF LAS VEGAS, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA – NOVEMBER 22: George Russell, Mercedes F1 W15 through the Las Vegas GP at Streets of Las Vegas on Friday November 22, 2024, United States of America. (Picture by Zak Mauger / LAT Photos)
