Russell sets the pace in final practice for Las Vegas GP

George Russell set the pace in the third practice session ahead of qualifying for this weekend’s Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix.

A late red flag for an incident involving Alex Albon losing a wheel saw the Mercedes driver top the times ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Logan Sargeant’s Williams.

Unlike yesterday’s opening session, the final practice hour ran without any early stoppages and saw most drivers get the opportunity to run the Soft tyre before qualifying.

However, one exception was the two Ferrari cars of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, who fronted the times yesterday but failed to complete a run on the softest compound.

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That provided the chance for a rival team to lead the timesheets for the first time this weekend, with Russell emerging on top ahead of Piastri’s McLaren by almost four-tenths.

Home favourite Sargeant wound up an encouraging third for Williams. Team-mate Albon was also on the pace until a tag with the wall at Turn 5 saw him lose his left rear wheel.

The Anglo-Thai racer ended up parking his car down an escape road and prompted a stoppage that curtailed all running, ensuring that he remained sixth in the order.

Despite remaining in the garage for the first third of FP3 and a lock-up, Verstappen still wound up fourth on the timesheets, one place ahead of team-mate Sergio Perez.

Fernando Alonso maintained Aston Martin’s positive momentum from earlier in the weekend to seize seventh, ahead of Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas and Kevin Magnussen.

The Haas driver endured a close call with Leclerc earlier in proceedings when the Ferrari closed rapidly on the Dane and had to take avoiding action to avoid contact.

Albon’s incident prevented either Ferrari driver from setting a representative time on the Soft tyre, leaving Leclerc and Sainz languishing down in 16th and 17th respectively.

While Piastri showed a promising turn of pace to end up in second, Lando Norris was six-tenths away from his McLaren team-mate and one place outside of the top 10.

Meanwhile, AlphaTauri encountered another troublesome time at the Las Vegas Strip Circuit, with Yuki Tsunoda 18th and Daniel Ricciardo slowest, 3.6s adrift of Russell.