Hamilton rues his mistake as he felt he had the pace for pole at Las Vegas

Having set the pace in the second qualifying session at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton made mistakes on his final two qualifying laps in Q3 which means that he will only line up tenth on a the grid tomorrow.

Lewis Hamilton set the pace in both practice sessions on Thursday. The Briton managed to carry that form over into Saturday, posting the quickest lap in the second qualifying segment. However, he made a crucial mistake on his first flying lap in Q3, and he lost the back end of his car at Turn 3 on his final push lap as well.

His costly mistakes meant that he could not extract his car's full potential, and will only line up tenth on the grid at the fourth Las Vegas Grand Prix.

"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," said Hamilton.

Asked to assess his team's showing at Las Vegas, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has revealed that the low ambient temperatures have played a key role in his outfit's impressive performance so far this weekend.

"The car has been really strong all weekend. We seem to be able to extract good performance in these cold temperatures, as we saw at Silverstone and Spa earlier in the season, and that has helped us today.

"Taking pole position is great but it is also a little bittersweet with Lewis in P10. We definitely had the speed to be on the front row with both cars, but I am sure he will bounce back tomorrow.

"It is difficult to say how the race will go tomorrow. We saw on Thursday that graining is a risk; nobody has had a proper look at the Hard tyre either, so there are going to be plenty of unknowns.

"Hopefully our single lap speed translates into race pace, and we have a competitive Grand Prix and fight for victory. Let’s see what we can do," concluded the Austrian.