The weather is cold in Las Vegas, and early mornings greeted the "participants" around the world, who were most curious about whether Mercedes' advantage from the third practice session would be converted into pole position.
The first fast laps of Q1 belonged to McLaren, then George Russell emerged and took the lead. Scuderia Ferrari also showed strong form, but Mercedes and Max Verstappen eventually finished in the top three. Among the losers, we traditionally saw Sergio Perez, Alexander Albon, Valtteri Bottas and both Aston Martins.
Q2 developed similarly to the first round, Hamilton, Piastre, Verstappen were in order, but with a little exaggeration, practically everything was up in the air. The Mercedes field was getting more and more... Hamilton Sainz Russell was in order, and when it seemed that the stage would end, it had to be closed early due to a very serious accident by Franco Collapinto. The red flag came and the wait... Apart from Collapinto, Esteban Ocon, Kevin Magnussen, Guanyu Zhou and Liam Lawson did not make it to Q3.
After the postponed first laps of Q3, Russell, Sainz, Verstappen were leading, which was no surprise. It was also no surprise that George Russell secured a clean pole position after his last few attempts. However, Carlos Sainz's second place and Pierre Gasly's fantastic third place certainly fall into this category. In the end, qualifying for the Las Vegas Grand Prix turned into a really good time trial, let's hope they carry this form into tomorrow's race!
