Mercedes completes Vegas practice sweep despite late red flag

George Russell completed a Mercedes practice clean sweep at the Las Vegas Grand Prix after a late red flag cut short the final qualifying preparations in FP3.

The front runners – bar Russell – had each completed a flying lap on fresh soft tires as the circuit began to pick up when Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin turned itself off exiting Turn 12, at the north end of Las Vegas Boulevard.

The Canadian parked at a gap in the fence, but the car’s warning lights indicated that the hybrid system had not been safely disabled and the car was therefore unsafe for the marshal to touch, necessitating a red flag to get the stricken car back off the track.

With less than seven minutes left on the clock, the stoppage in practice effectively ended the session, with racing resuming for the final 60 seconds only to allow practice to start.

That ensured Russell, who was the only one of the leaders to have completed two flying laps, was locked into first place with a best time of 1m 33.570s.

The benchmark was around 0.3 seconds faster than FP2 on Thursday and around half a second faster than FP3 last season.

Oscar Piastri, the penultimate front-runner to cross the line before the red flag, was second and 0.215s behind, with Carlos Sainz making it three teams inside the top three by taking his Ferrari around the track 0.348s.

Lando Norris, the last of the top drivers to set a time, was fourth and 0.438s slower than Russell.

Max Verstappen completed a magnificent turnaround for Red Bull Racing after lamenting a lack of pace on a lap at the end of Thursday’s practice, with his RB20 struggling under the low grips.

Changes made overnight appeared to make no meaningful difference, with Verstappen complaining over team radio about heavy grain on his front left tire and on the rear axle.

“The car can’t be driven,” he reported during his opening long-term simulation, and after being told to continue, added: “I can’t drive it. I’m going to crash.”

He was brought in for several set-up changes ahead of his qualifying simulation and they finally seemed to do the trick.

His one soft tire run put him briefly at the top of the order, to which he replied: “Grip felt miles better, much better”.

Unable to set a second time, he finished 0.567s off the pace.

Lewis Hamilton, who topped both Thursday practice sessions, aborted his only representative run on soft tires to finish sixth, 0.771 seconds off the pace.

Alex Albon, his car cured of its Thursday fuel system problems, was seventh ahead of Williams team-mate Franco Colapinto.

Kevin Magnussen and Pierre Gasly completed the top 10 ahead of Nico Hulkenberg in 11, the trio 1.3s off the pace and separated by just 0.025s.

Charles Leclerc was two-thirds of the way through his first qualifying run and had just set a purple middle sector when the red flag was called, leaving him 12th.

Sergio Perez followed in 13th, although the Mexican had two attempts at a flying lap before the red flag.

Esteban Ocon was 14th ahead of Fernando Alonso, Yuki Tsunoda, Valtteri Bottas, Liam Lawson, Lance Stroll and Zhou Guanyu.