Russell on Vegas GP F1 pole as Hamilton flounders

George Russell earned Mercedes’ first Formula 1 pole position in over four months but team-mate Lewis Hamilton was only 10th after a Q3 disaster.

Mercedes only has one podium finish since the summer break and had been cast adrift of F1’s top three teams prior to Vegas.

But it has returned to form this weekend in style, backing up strong practice pace by looking like the clear pole position favourite throughout qualifying.

Russell topped Q1, Hamilton topped Q2 and then Russell delivered a late lap in Q3 to secure his fourth pole of his career, his first since Silverstone in July.

But Hamilton couldn’t join him at the front with both his Q3 runs ending with mistakes. That left him at the opposite end of Q3 with no representative time.

That opened the door for Carlos Sainz to take a place on the front row, 0.098s slower than Russell.

Pierre Gasly was a superb third for Alpine - beating the other Ferrari of Charles Leclerc and F1 2024 championship protagonists Max Verstappen and Lando Norris.

Verstappen only has to finish ahead of Norris to secure his fourth world title this weekend.

RB’s Yuki Tsunoda beat Oscar Piastri to seventh place, with Nico Hulkenberg and Hamilton rounding out the top 10.

Colapinto crashes out of Q2

There were grimaces in the Williams garage as Franco Colapinto smashed up his FW46 after clipping the inside wall at the penultimate corner on his critical qualifying lap.

That consigned him to a Q2 exit but, more importantly, caused significant damage to his car that you’d suspect will force a pitlane start.

It adds to a brutal second major crash streak of the season for Williams - who already spent the Brazil-Las Vegas gap rebuilding two broken cars.

He ended up 14th, only ahead of Liam Lawson’s RB.

Esteban Ocon was the fastest of the five drivers eliminated in Q2, missing out on a place in Q3 by just 0.048s.

He was followed by Kevin Magnussen and Zhou Guanyu - who earned his best qualifying result of the season in 13th.

Perez out in Q1

Sergio Perez’s shaky Red Bull future took another blow as a lack of confidence on the low-grip surface left him well down the order.

His chief rival for his seat next year Lawson was the man to knock him out of Q1, with Perez ending up 0.068s adrift of safety in 16th place.

Aston Martin was the only team to lose both cars in Q1. Fernando Alonso was knocked out in 17th while Lance Stroll was slowest of all, having started qualifying late after his team fixed the ERS issue that led to him stopping on track in FP3.

Alex Albon was only 18th, putting that down to tyres that weren’t in the right window after an outlap that was “10-15 seconds slower than normal”.

Valtteri Bottas couldn’t match his Sauber team-mate’s Q2 heroics and suffered a rare 2024 intra-team qualifying defeat in 19th. A five-place grid penalty for exceeding the number of energy stores allowed in a season will drop him behind Stroll on the grid.