FP3: Russell tops final practice as Mercedes continues to dominate at Las Vegas
On the back of an impressive showing on Thursday, Mercedes continued to set the pace in the third and final practice at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, with George Russell setting the benchmark ahead of McLaren driver Oscar Piastri.
The start of the final practice saw Red Bull elect to work on long runs while most of the field concentrated on the short runs in a bid to fine tune the cars for the qualifying session.
George Russell found himself atop the leaderboard, having completed a total of 18 laps. The British driver was particularly impressive through the first sector which indicated that he was able to prepare his tyres for the start of the lap, something which only Mercedes have been able to achieve so far this weekend.
Oscar Piastri spent the majority of the session down the order, but he put in a great effort to end up second fastest, with his team-mate Lando Norris taking fourth.
Ferrari had an encouraging session, with Carlos Sainz finishing down in P3. His team-mate Charles Leclerc finished down in P12, but the Monegasque was unable to complete any laps on his second fresh set of softs as the session was red-flagged at the end due to a technical issue on Lance Stroll's car.
Reigning champion Max Verstappen focussed on a heavy fuel run on medium tyres during his first stint, and he complained about his tyres throughout that entire run. However, he displayed a much more encouraging performance on Pirelli's red-walled tyres at the end of the session, ending up in P5.
On the back of a very difficult Sao Paulo Grand Prix, Williams pair Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto displayed an impressive performance in final practice at Las Vegas, ending up in P7 and P8 respectively, the former making up for some lost mileage after his fuel system issue during FP2.
Haas drivers Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg were very impressive in the first part of the final one-hour session, and they ended up ninth and eleventh on the leaderboard.
Sergio Perez took 13th, and the Mexican became the only driver to miss the chance to complete a practice start amid the pit lane queue when the session restarted with a minute to go.
Fernando Alonso continued to struggle for pace in final practice, setting only the 15th quickest lap to end up 2.3 seconds adrift of the benchmark.
RB drivers Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson ended up in respective P16 and P18 positions, while the Kick Sauber duo Valtteri Bottas (17th) and Zhou Guanyu (20th), and the sidelined Stroll (19th), brought up the rear of the field.
