FP3: Russell heads Piastri in final practice in Las Vegas

F1 Grand Prix, GP Las Vegas, Las Vegas Street Circuit

Mercedes driver George Russell set the tone in final practice for the Las Vegas Grand Prix as he clocked the fastest time of the weekend with a 1m34.093s to beat McLaren's Oscar Piastri in the third one-hour session.

The final practice of the Las Vegas Grand Prix saw drivers complete a fully-packed schedule as everyone wanted to make up for the time lost in the opening session of the weekend.

While Mercedes concentrated on setup work and heavy-fuel run in the opening phase of the final practice, they shifted their focus more towards qualifying trim as the session progressed. George Russell did not look particularly quick yesterday, but he was comfortably the fastest today with a time of 1m34.093s. His team-mate Lewis Hamilton ended the session in P8, seven tenths of a second off.

Williams had an encouraging final practice session with Logan Sargeant taking an eye-catching P3 in the final standings. His team-mate Alexander Albon finished sixth fastest. However, the Thai driver hit the barriers in the final phase of the one-hour session, which saw him lose a tyre in the process. The incident brought out the red flags and the session was not resumed.

Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez were left in fourth and fifth respectively with yesterday's surprise man Fernando Alonso taking 7th.

After dominating proceedings yesterday, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz lost out to the red flags, having been unable to complete their flying runs on the soft tyre. The Monégasque and the Spaniard completed longer runs on Pirelli's medium tyre early on in the session with their times set on the yellow-banded tyres putting them in P16 and P17 respectively.