Russell on the Vegas pole as Colapinto gives Williams another headache

George Russell took his third pole position of the season ahead of Carlos Sainz and a super Pierre Gasly in a delayed finish to qualifying after a heavy crash by Williams rookie Franco Colapinto.

Colapinto’s big crash leaving the final chicane scattered debris across the circuit and damaged the concrete barriers at the exit of Turn 16, forcing a delay of more than 20 minutes to the start of Q3.

By then the track temperature had dropped to 57 degrees F and grip was harder to come by. Russell took provisional pole ahead of Sainz with his first flying lap almost 0.3s slower than the fastest time in Q2 set almost half an hour earlier.

The two drivers share their strategies for tackling the cooler track temperature. Sainz was sent onto the track with enough time to complete two warm-up laps ahead of his final attempt, while Russell insisted on being last on the track and exiting the pitlane at the tail of the 10 entrants. The Briton also had a new front wing after seeing the barriers on his first lap at Turn 5.

With extra heat in the tyres, Sainz found more than 0.6s to grab provisional pole, but Russell’s sweetly balanced Mercedes was just fine without the extra preparation, lowering the benchmark to 1m32.312s to squeeze top spot by 0.098s.

“It feels incredible to be back on the pole,” he said. “I’m just so happy.

“We’ve been so fast all weekend and I just knew coming into the final Q3 lap that it was going to be the one that counted. We have to dig deep to understand how we have been so fast this weekend, because it has been a real surprise.”

Sainz was surprised to be so close to pole in the cold conditions and said it boded well for his chances of victory.

“It was a tight qualifier,” he said. I’m a little closer to pole than I expected, actually.

“We have to remain confident that tomorrow we can fight more on the front night than today, so if today we were close in qualifying, we might have the chance to win tomorrow. That will be the aim. “

Gasly was a sensational third for Alpine, surpassing his team’s best qualifying result of fourth from the previous race in Brazil and comfortably bettering his personal benchmark of seventh in Barcelona and Austin. The Frenchman improved by more than a second with his final flying lap to come within 0.352s of pole.

“It’s unbelievable,” he said. “Honestly, we didn’t think we would be able to get a top three in qualifying. It was an incredible lap, especially around this track.

“I knew it was going to be a good lap to cross the line, but when they came over the radio and told me we’re lining up third tomorrow, it was amazing.”

Charles Leclerc was fourth after fumbling his first lap with a moment of understeer through Turn 7. He ended the session 0.471s slower than Russell.

Max Verstappen will line up fifth after lapping 0.485s off the pace, a recovery from his poor Thursday practice times but without dragging himself into contention for pole.

The best McLaren could manage was sixth with Lando Norris, who was 0.696 seconds off the pace. Norris and teammate Oscar Piastri, who was eighth and 0.025s further back, were second and first on track to set their ultimate lap times, potentially leaving them missing out on some track evolution.

Yuki Tsunoda split the papaya cars in seventh for RB, while Nico Hulkenberg qualified ninth for Haas.

Lewis Hamilton completed the top 10 after a nightmare qualifying session in which he locked up at Turn 12 on his first flying lap and suffered a major oversteer snap in the first sector on his final lap, leaving him without a representative time.

Esteban Ocon qualified 11th ahead of Kevin Magnussen and Zhou Guanyu, the Chinese driver making only his third appearance outside the bottom five of the season.

Colapinto was 14th fastest but ended Q2 in a pile-up at the exit of Turn 16. The Argentine clipped the tip barrier at the left-hander, breaking his front-left suspension and sending his Williams slamming into the concrete barrier on the right-hand side of the track.

The rookie emerged unscathed, although his car was heavily damaged, with three corners broken along with both wings and much of the bodywork. It was his second qualifying crash in a row and Williams’ six major crashes from the last three events dating back to the Mexico City Grand Prix last month.

Williams worked heroically to complete repairs on both cars in time to fly to Las Vegas, but has fewer parts than it normally would have given the cost cap and the need to focus on next year’s car.

Liam Lawson qualified 15th after abandoning his final flying lap shortly before Colapinto’s red flag.

Sergio Perez starts 16th, his fourth bottom-10 qualification in the last five grands prix. It is his sixth Q1 knockout this season and his second in the last three Grands Prix.

Fernando Alonso qualified as No. 17 ahead of Alex Albon and Valtteri Bottas, although the Finn is demoted to the back of the grid with a penalty for taking an unscheduled energy storage change.

Lance Stroll therefore starts 19th after having time to set a flying lap at the very end of the session. The Canadian had been kept in his garage for almost the entire session while mechanics scrambled to change his energy recovery system, which had failed in the final minutes of FP3.