The weather in Las Vegas was cool and the participants were greeted with an early start, mainly to see if Mercedes’ advantage from the third practice session could be converted into pole position.
The first fast laps of Q1 were all McLaren, then George Russell flashed and took the lead. As in practice, Scuderia Ferrari also showed strong form, but the top three places were eventually taken by Mercedes and Max Verstappen. Among those eliminated as usual were Sergio Perez, Alexander Albon, Valtteri Bottas and the two Aston Martin drivers.
Q2 went similarly to the first part, the order was Hamilton, Piastri, Verstappen, but with a slight exaggeration in the air, literally anything could happen. The Mercedes field was becoming more and more realistic... The order was Hamilton, Sainz, Russell, and when the time for the segment was about to end, it had to be ended early due to a very serious accident by Franco Collapinto. The red flag came out and there was a break... Alongside Collapinto, Esteban Ocon, Kevin Magnussen, Guanyu Zhou and Liam Lawson did not qualify for Q3.
After the delayed first laps of Q3 Russell, Sainz and Verstappen were leading the field, which was no longer a surprise. It was no surprise either that George Russell took a smooth pole position at the end of the last tests. However, Carlos Sainz's second place and Pierre Gasly's fantastic third place are definitely worth mentioning. Finally, qualifying for the Las Vegas Grand Prix was a real success, let's hope they carry this form into tomorrow's race!
