George Russell ensured Mercedes headed all three practice sessions for the Las Vegas Grand Prix by topping the final hour of running on Friday.
His quickest lap in the W15 was two tenths of a second quicker than Oscar Piastri managed in the final session before qualifying, with Carlos Sainz Jnr in third.
After a cold and dusty start to the event on Thursday, conditions for the final practice session were slightly warmer than the second. But with the temperature certain to drop during the hour and ahead of qualifying, teams were reluctant to send their cars out on a slippery track in conditions that would not be representative of the race.
Aside from Aston Martin and Mercedes, who sent both of their cars out to scrub sets of hard tyres, Red Bull was the only team to attempt a run in the early minutes. However Sergio Perez was several seconds off Thursday’s pace and abandoned his run after complaining there was no point continuing in the conditions.
After a period of quiet, Red Bull eventually sent both their drivers out again, starting a run of cars taking to the circuit. After showing underwhelming pace on Thursday, Verstappen appeared to struggle again on the medium tyres, running off at turn five multiple times and complaining that his car was “undriveable”.
Following a longer spell in the garage, Verstappen rejoined the session later on soft tyres. He reported being much happier with the grip levels from the car even on the out-lap and posting what was the new fastest lap of the session.
But after his rivals completed their own qualifying simulation runs, the championship leader was quickly demoted to fifth place. George Russell posted the quickest time of all with a 1’33.570, two tenths of a second quicker than Oscar Piastri’s McLaren.
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With just under 10 minutes remaining, the session was stopped with a red flag when Lance Stroll was told to stop his car as he turned onto the Strip. Practice was resumed with only a minute remaining, allowing most of the field back out to take the chequered flag and attempt a practice start, but Perez failed to reach the pit exit line in time and was unable to join the others.
Russell therefore completed the session fastest ahead of Piastri, with Sainz behind in third. Lando Norris was a tenth quicker than rival Verstappen in fourth ahead of Lewis Hamilton and the two Williams of Alexander Albon and Franco Colapinto. Kevin Magnussen and Pierre…
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