Russell puts Mercedes on pole in Las Vegas and Verstappen stifles Norris in championship battle

LAS VEGAS — George Russell put Mercedes on pole for the Las Vegas Grand Prix against teammate Lewis Hamilton, who had been considered the favorite but struggled in Friday night’s final qualifying session.

“It’s amazing to be back on pole, we were so fast all weekend,” Russell said of the fourth pole of his career. “But I’m so happy and we have to do a deep dive to find out why we were so quick because it was a bit of a surprise.”

Hamilton was fastest in the first two practice sessions of the weekend and Russell in the third and final session on Friday evening. But in qualifying, Hamilton made two mistakes in the final group and finished 10th while Russell will lead the field to green in Saturday night’s race.

Russell clinched the top starting spot at the buzzer after Ferrari drivers Carlos Sainz Jr. and Charles Leclerc appeared to sweep the front row. Russell’s late lap then pushed Sainz to second, Pierre Gasly slipped to third and Leclerc finished fourth.

“It was a close qualifying, a little closer to pole than I expected, I thought I had pole and then George came very, very quickly at the end,” Sainz said. “We have to remain confident that tomorrow we can fight even closer to the front than today so that tomorrow we have a chance to go for victory and that will be the goal.”

Championship leader Max Verstappen of Red Bull qualified fourth. Verstappen needs to score just three points more than challenger Lando Norris on Saturday night to win his fourth consecutive world championship, and the McLaren driver qualified sixth.

Verstappen struggled for much of the weekend as Red Bull used an incorrect setup on the rear wings of both his cars, but claimed the issues were corrected in time for qualifying.

But that solution didn’t help his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez, who was eliminated from the first qualifying group for the sixth time this season and will start 16th on Saturday night in Red Bull’s tough fight to stay in contention in the constructors’ championship. . The two-time reigning manufacturers’ winners are third in the standings with three races remaining.

“Unbelievable, it doesn’t get any better,” Perez said on his radio. “I can’t find any traction.”

He later said Las Vegas had been a struggle for Red Bull.

“All weekend I had a lot of trouble with the grip. It’s really difficult to complete a lap,” he said. “I expected very difficult qualifying and it turned out to be quite difficult.

Franco Colapinto, one of the drivers sometimes mentioned as a possible replacement for Perez at Red Bull, had his own miserable qualifying session when he crashed hard into the wall at the end of the second qualifying group. The contact completely destroyed his Williams less than 24 hours before the start of the race.

As well as delaying the start of the third session, the accident could impact Colapinto’s future on the F1 grid. He also crashed in the final race in Brazil when, 16th, he crashed on the main straight while the peloton was under safety car conditions due to rain.

Although uninjured, the incident cost Williams millions of dollars in damages and the Las Vegas accident only added to that growing total. Colapinto was replacing Logan Sargeant mid-season, who was fired for underperformance, and will be replaced at Williams next year by Sainz.

He had outperformed in two of his six races with the team by finishing in the points, but the former F2 driver is now hurting his chances of landing an F1 seat in 2025.

Williams took a second hit when Alex Albon also failed to advance out of the first qualifying group.