#F1 #LasVegasGP Qualifying: @GeorgeRussell63 pips @Carlossainz55 to pole by 0.098s.
George Russell, #63, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team, F1 W15, celebrating in Parc Ferme after taking his fourth-career pole position, Qualifying, Formula 1 Heineken Silver Las Vegas Grand Prix 2024, Las Vegas Strip Circuit, Las Vegas, Nevada. Image credit to Mark Thompson/Getty Images. Russell Las Vegas Pole, 2024 Las Vegas Qualifying, Las Vegas GP Qualifying Results, F1 Las Vegas Qualifying Results, 2024 Formula 1 Las Vegas GP Qualifying Results.
Russell Las Vegas Pole – Mercedes’ George Russell pipped Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz to pole position in a thrilling qualifying session at the Las Vegas GP. Championship contenders Max Verstappen and Lando Norris endured a tough session and will line up alongside each other on the third row of the grid in fifth and sixth places respectively.
This was Russell’s fourth pole position of his career in a closely-contested Q3 session.
In Q3, following a lengthy delay to repair the barriers, cleared the shards of debris and the wrecked FW46 entry of Franco Colapinto. The opening hot-laps saw Sainz post three personal bests to set a 1:33.022 and was 0.215 seconds quicker than Norris with Piastri a further 0.498 off in third.
Verstappen then slotted himself into second place until Russell posted a 1:32.811 to take provisional pole over Sainz by 0.211 seconds after setting the quickest sector one time in the session. Seven-time world champion Hamilton aborted his opening flying tour after suffering a lock-up and using the run-off area.
In the final hot-laps, Piastri was the first to cross the line with a 1:33.033 to go second, then Norris bumped his McLaren team-mate down to third.
Leclerc then demoted both McLaren’s to snatch provisional pole until Sainz stormed with a great lap to take P1 from his Ferrari team-mate.
Alpine’s Pierre Gasly then split the Ferrari’s to go second before Russell then stormed with the fastest sector one and three times to post a 1:32.212 and grabbed pole position off Sainz by 0.098 seconds for Mercedes.
The other Ferrari SF-24 entry of Leclerc ended up fourth and in-front of title contenders Verstappen and Norris who were fifth and sixth respectively.
RB’s Yuki Tsunoda qualified an impressive seventh ahead of McLaren’s Piastri who was eighth and MoneyGram Haas F1 Team’s Nico Hulkenberg who took ninth.
Hamilton made a mistake on his final flyer, had his lap-time invalidated and ended up tenth.
In the middle segment, which was topped by Hamilton, Alpine team-mate Esteban Ocon made a late improvement but was only good enough for 11th.
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen qualified 12th and in-front of Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu who took 13th.
Q2 ended with double-waved yellows after Franco Colapinto suffered a big shunt into the wall. The replays showed he clipped the inside wall at turn 15, breaking his suspension, which sent his FW46 racer into the wall on the outside of turn 16. The Argentine thankfully walked away unscathed and ended in 14th on the classification.
RB’s Liam Lawson scored two personal best on his final flyer before aborting the lap and wounded up 15th and slowest of the Q2 runners.
In the opening qualifying stage, which was topped by Russell, Red Bull’s Sergio Perez wounded up the quickest of the Q1 eliminatees in 16th and missed out on a Q2 appearance by 0.068 seconds.
Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll ended up 17th and at the rear respectively as Williams’ Alexander Albon (had his lap-time deleted for exceeding track limits) and Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas sandwiched in-between the two AMR24 entries in 18th and 19th. Bottas will start at the back of the grid due his five grid-placed penalty for taking on a new Energy Store power-unit component.
You can see the full Formula 1 Heineken Silver Las Vegas Grand Prix 2024 Qualifying Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results/2024/races/1250/las-vegas/qualifying
2024 Las Vegas GP Qualifying – The Top Three
2024 Las Vegas GP Pole – George Russell, #63, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team, F1 W15 – 1:32.312:
“I feel it is incredible to be back on pole, we’ve been so quick all weekend. I knew coming into that last Q3 lap it was the one that would count. Just so happy, we have to do some deep diving to find out why we’ve been so quick as it is a real surprise. Ultimately you have to put it all on the table sometimes, I knew a clean lap would be enough to secure the front row. We’ve had a few good qualifying’s recently, but we need to covert that now.”
2nd Place – Carlos Sainz, #55, Scuderia Ferrari, SF-24 – +0.098s:
“Very tricky – it was a tough quali. A bit closer to pole than what I was expecting, but very happy. I think we are starting in a strong position for tomorrow. We need to stay confident that we can fight at the front and have a chance at going for the win.”
3rd Place – Pierre Gasly, #10, BWT Alpine F1 Team-Renault, A524 – +0.352s:
“It’s unbelievable, we didn’t think we would be able to achieve a top three in quali. It was an incredible lap, a lot of adrenaline, a lot of excitement. I knew crossing the line it was a good lap, but when they told me it was top three, I was so happy. I must say it is an incredible period for the team, hopefully we can stay up there tomorrow.”
#F1 #LasVegasGP: @GeorgeRussell63 tops red-flag affected FP3 session.
#F1 #LasVegasGP FP2: @LewisHamilton quickest ahead of @LandoNorris by 0.011s.
#F1 #LasVegasGP FP1: @LewisHamilton pips team-mate @GeorgeRussell63 by 0.396s.
#F1 @Heineken Silver #LasVegasGP 2024 Preview. #Formula1 #LasVegasGrandPrix
