Russell leads final practice ahead of surprise contenders

George Russell set the pace from Oscar Piastri and Logan Sargant in the final practice session in Las Vegas before qualifying.

The Mercedes driver set his quickset lap moments before a Red Flag was caused by Alex Albon, who hit the wall coming out of Turn 15. The impact ripped the tyre off his rim, with Albon forced to stop on track.

The Red Flag prevented several drivers from improving, including Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc.

It took Red Bull 20 minutes before they emerged from the pit lane on their set of Soft tyres, having chosen not to complete any long run.

They initially went slower than Ferrari on the Mediums, before Verstappen topped the timesheet midway through the session with a 1:34.653.

George Russell went 0.068s quicker when he switched to the Soft tyre at the start of the last quarter of the session, with Alex Albon also third quickest as the track evolution ramped up.

Verstappen was initially on a run having fitted a set of new tyres, but went off track at Turn 12 after initially being distracted by Daniel Ricciardo going off at the same corner.

There was no other dramas on track, which was in stark contrast to yesterday's delays which forced FP2 to start two and a half hours later and run for 90 minutes rather than the usual 60 minutes.

The initial pace was set by Leclerc on the Medium tyre as Ferrari elected to run a similar downforce package for both cars, using a low downforce setup.

Leclerc's best lap of a 1:37.664s on the Mediums was just 0.031s quicker than teammate Carlos Sainz.

Initially Mercedes elected to also run on the Medium tyre with both drivers, in what appeared to be a high fuel run in the opening stages of FP3.

Aston Martin also ran the Mediums with Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, with few teams including Alpine and Alfa Romeo focusing on their qualifying pace.