REACTIONS: What did the drivers have to say after the Las Vegas qualifying day?

On the back of a series of tough races, Mercedes driver George Russell was at a loss for words when explaining his dominant pace in qualifying at the Las Vegas Grand Prix. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo delivers teams' reactions.

Having dominated the practice sessions with his team-mate Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes driver George Russell was quickest come the end of a very exciting session, especially the last few laps of Q3: in the space of 42 seconds, the number one spot which Russell had secured on his first run, changed hands three times before coming back to its initial owner.

The balance between the teams has been very close throughout this 2024 season and there was further confirmation of that tonight, with the three quickest drivers coming from three different teams: behind Russell in the Mercedes (1’32”312) comes the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz (1’32”410), followed by Pierre Gasly in the Alpine (1’32”664). Seven teams were represented in the final phase of qualifying, the absentees being Sauber, Williams and Aston Martin, although the first two of those did at least get one driver into Q2.

"The car was feeling great today, and it has been a good weekend up to the final segment of Qualifying. I was quickest in Q2 but unfortunately, I had two bad laps in Q3 and that left us P10.

"The conditions were still good, but I didn’t get the job done. It’s really disappointing as we definitely had the pace for pole position today. Congratulations to George who did a great job to take P1. It will be difficult starting from where we are in P10, but I will try and get up to the podium tomorrow. I will be giving it my best to do so."

"It feels incredible to be back on pole position. We’ve been so quick all weekend, but I knew that, coming into Q3, it was going to be that last lap that counted and nothing that had happened before mattered.

"On my first effort, I had a little bit of a moment out of turn five and clipped the wall. The mechanics did a great job to switch the front-wing quickly before our final run, but there was a brief moment where I thought we wouldn’t get back around and make the flag. I felt confident in myself though and knew that if I put together a clean lap that pole was possible and that was what we were able to deliver.

"Ultimately though we’ve had a few good qualifying sessions recently and we need to convert them into good results. It will be a long race tomorrow, and there will be plenty of unknowns, but I am hopeful that we can fight for victory. I’m excited for the Grand Prix; it’ll be a great atmosphere on Saturday night racing down the Strip in Las Vegas. I’ll have a good night’s sleep this evening and come back raring to go tomorrow."

"It wasn’t a great qualifying. We struggled quite a bit with grip and couldn’t get the tyres in the right window, so we will be looking into this. It shouldn’t be an issue during the race and after we clear the first few laps things should look slightly different, but we will have to be careful at the start as graining will be high.

"On the upside, we qualified ahead of both McLarens which is our target, so we will give it our all to keep it that way tomorrow."

"I'm happy with qualifying today as it was one of the trickiest Saturdays of the season and we performed well. I would have obviously preferred to be on pole, but Mercedes has been very fast all weekend on a flying lap.

"Overall, we are in a good position for the race and in terms of pace I’m confident we can put up a fight. Maximising points tomorrow is also key for the Constructors’ Championship battle, so full focus on the race!"

“Firstly, congratulations to Pierre and the team on the great result in Qualifying. On my side, I am very happy with the lap in Qualifying today and, though it is a pity that we missed out on Q3 by just a tenth of a second, we will be starting in eleventh, which puts us in a position to try and fight for points.

"It will be interesting to see how tyre degradation will play into the results of the race tomorrow. Hopefully it will open up the door to some good opportunities for us to move forward. We struggled a bit with traction and grip in the sessions today, but we are working hard to improve, and we will give it everything tomorrow to keep the tyres alive and maximise any opportunity that comes our way. We did it last year from further back on the grid so we have confidence we can come away with a good team result.”

“I’m very happy to qualify in the top three today. The lap felt incredible and it was one of those when you cross the line and you know that everything was thrown at it. I never imagined that we would be in the top three, though, that was a surprise. This track is all about fine margins and it’s tricky with the low downforce with a lot of sliding but I just had a lot of fun out there too.

"We had one set of new Softs for Q3 so it was kind of a last lap shot, plenty of adrenaline, and I’m just pleased we put it together. Tomorrow, we will give it everything but we know where our fight is. It’s a tough race for tyre degradation and graining. We have to stay on top of it as last year at this race it cost us. We’ve worked hard as a team to understand it and there is more hard work tonight to prepare ourselves. We will go for it tomorrow with the target of taking some points.”

“The day started off quite tough but we did our best and maximised everything that we could. The tyres are our main issue as we were struggling quite a lot with the grip throughout the day. Our long runs have not been that great and we were too slow on the straight. However, I think we did execute everything really well in qualifying and worked well as a Team.

"I am ultimately happy with how it went; I left everything out there and we ended up in P5. Everything looks a lot better than yesterday and hopefully with the things that we changed on the car, we are a bit more competitive tomorrow in the race. Let’s hope that the changes will make an impact and we can put together a good performance tomorrow."

“The whole weekend we have been struggling with the grip, it is weirdly difficult to put a lap together, with sliding and grip with the tyres. I did expect a very difficult qualifying and it turned out to be a very tricky one. We have been lacking a lot of low-speed performance and we haven’t been able to put the tyres in the right window, that was the main issue and has been very costly in this session.

"I wanted more today but the progress was not enough. Max managed to put a very good lap together and they seem to have found a bit of performance over one lap, whereas from our side we didn’t. I think it is going to be quite a tricky one tomorrow, I believe that our race pace is a lot more competitive than over one lap though so we should be able to come through the field."

“Not a great Quali, in terms of position. We’ve been struggling all weekend; we’ve not had the pace of some of our competitors, and things didn’t come together in Qualifying. I’m happy with my performance in the end. I feel I put in a reasonable lap. It was just too difficult to do a perfect lap. It’ll be difficult tomorrow, but it’s a long race, so we’ll see what we can do.”

"It was a bit of a tricky Qualifying, I just struggled to extract more laptime in Q3. We’ve still got a long race tomorrow and I think it’s going to be an interesting one with overtaking and tyres, so let’s see."

"We struggled a lot with overall grip. It’s frustrating, but it’s not excuse, we’re all on the same track. I was sliding around most of the lap and had a massive slide in turn 14, meaning I had to abort the lap, which is a shame. It’s a little bit puzzling, because through different points the car was good, we felt strong, it definitely felt better in Q1 than it did in Q2. We’ll dig into it and see what’s going on.

"For everybody tomorrow it’s going to be about protecting the tyres and stopping them from graining in these cold temperatures, which is going to be quite tough but that’s the target. These conditions are tricky, but we’ll look into what we did yesterday in the long runs and try and make something work for tomorrow.”

“I’m really happy about our performance today. Coming to qualifying we didn’t expect to get through to Q3, and compared to the start of the weekend we made a quick turnaround, so thanks and well done to the team for the big effort.

"We were able to understand our upgrades, and once we found the direction to follow, we were able to improve session by session. Our main competitors have also done a good job, so it won’t be an easy race tomorrow, but anything can happen, especially in a street circuit. We’ll stay focused and do as much as we can.”

“Around this track you always think there could’ve been more, but it’s tough. With the low-grip feeling, sometimes you try more and massively overstep and lose it, it’s a very fine line here and it’s challenging for everyone. All in all, it was a decent qualifying but I would’ve liked to have been a bit more ahead – I think P6 was only half a tenth away – so that would’ve made me happier, but we’ll try and race well tomorrow. We have a good race car, so I’m optimistic.”

“There were some decent laps there, it just didn’t seem like we had the pace from practice. There’s a bit of a question mark there, as I had expected us to be best of the rest, and suddenly I was behind a few others and not sure why. P12 is still a spot we can score points from, it’s a long race and it’s not over at all.”

"It was quite a messy session for me; we knew the track was always going to be the best towards the end of Q1, but then on my first lap of the final run, it just didn’t come together. I knew that I could improve a big chunk on the second lap, but I unfortunately just ran into lots of traffic.

"It was a bit unlucky, but also not the cleanest lap on my side, which is a shame. In any case, we always had a five-place grid penalty for tomorrow, so it would have been difficult to move away from the back rows anyway. Now we have a bit of a mountain to climb, but we'll give it everything we can tomorrow. We have seen this circuit can provide opportunities for action, and we’ll need to make the most of that."

"It’s great to be back in Q2! We’ve made solid progress throughout the weekend, and I’m very satisfied with today’s session. Considering the limited practice in FP3, I’m really happy with my qualifying lap — it felt quite strong, and I believe we extracted most from the car.

"Starting in such a competitive position creates an opportunity for us, and it’s a testament to the team’s hard work. Tomorrow, we’ll give it everything we’ve got to capitalise on this strong starting point and fight for a great result."

"We have been uncompetitive the whole weekend so far and expected it to be a struggle heading into Qualifying. We have been struggling with the balance and managing the tyre temperatures in these colder conditions here in Las Vegas.

"We’ve had a few races of being uncompetitive now, but we need to improve and keep learning for next year. As we saw in last year’s race anything can happen, so we will be ready to capitalise on any incidents or Safety Cars that come up."

"It was a really good effort from the team to get my car ready for Qualifying after the ERS failure. We managed to get out on track for one lap, but it's tricky when the tyre temperatures aren't there, and I got held with a bit of traffic at Turn 12. I think it’ll be a tough day tomorrow. It's a race that requires a lot of tyre management and our car can be quite hard on tyres, but we’ll see what we can do."