Cool weather in Vegas and early mornings around the world greeted the "participants", who were mostly curious about whether Mercedes could turn the advantage it showed in the third free practice into pole position.
The first fast laps of Q1 were all about McLaren, then George Russell flashed and took the lead. Scuderia Ferrari also showed strong form as in practice, but the top three were eventually taken by Mercedes and Max Verstappen. Among the traditional eliminations were Sergio Perez, Alexander Albon, Valtteri Bottas and the two Aston Martins.
Q2 was similar to the first stage, the order was Hamilton, Piastri, Verstappen, but with a little exaggeration practically anything was in the air. The Mercedes pole was getting better and better… The order was Hamilton Sainz Russell, and just when the stage was about to end, it had to be closed prematurely due to a very nasty accident by Franco Collapinto. Red flags and waiting followed… In addition to Collapinto, Esteban Ocon, Kevin Magnussen, Guanyu Zhou, and Liam Lawson did not make it to Q3.
After the first laps of the postponed Q3, Russell, Sainz, Verstappen led the field, which was no surprise. It was not really surprising that George Russell took pole position after the last shots. However, Carlos Sainz's second place and Pierre Gasly's fantastic third place absolutely belong in this category. In the end, the Las Vegas Grand Prix qualifying turned out to be a really good time trial, let's hope they carry this form over to tomorrow's race!
