George Russell finishes on top in FP3 as red flag ends session early

George Russell has finished on top in the final practice session at the Las Vegas Grand Prix. The Mercedes driver claimed the spot, ahead of Oscar Piastri and Logan Sargeant, with a lap time of 1:34.093. Alex Albon caused a late red flag, which ended the session early, as he lost a tyre on track after sliding into the wall.

The session started slow for several teams apart from Ferrari. The Scuderia started off exactly how they finished and pushed into the lead early, with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz swapping places at the top of the timings chart. Soon though, Max Verstappen came out of the pits and was instantly competing with the Italian team’s duo, as expected.

This Red Bull dominance then lasted for the next 20 minutes, and it seemed as though the session was split into thirds because the track speed ramped up majorly for the final part of FP3 and the battle for the top spot turned into qualifying it seemed.

Russell and Piastri were the only two to hold the top spot after Verstappen, but the battle behind was extremely close with P4 to P8 split by only two tenths of a second. The Dutchman held P4 with his teammate, Sergio Perez, in P5, Albon and Fernando Alonso then followed closely in the 1:34.7’s, with Lewis Hamilton claiming P8.

Valtteri Bottas and Kevin Magnussen rounded out the top 10, as the session was cut short by five minutes, with Albon causing a red flag as he slid into the wall and lost his rear left tyre.

Lando Norris finished one place outside the top 10, and the Ferrari duo of Leclerc and Sainz were all the way down in P16 and P17.

Due to the red flag, teams were unable to complete any practice starts, meaning valuable data was lost before the qualifying gets underway later today.