LAS VEGAS (AP) — George Russell put Mercedes on pole for the Las Vegas Grand Prix out of frustration with teammate Lewis Hamilton, who was considered the favorite but struggled in Friday night’s final qualifying session.

“It feels incredible to be on pole again, we’ve been so fast all weekend,” said Russell of the fourth pole of his career. “But I’m just so happy and we have to dive deep to find out why we were so fast because it was a bit of a surprise.”

Hamilton was fastest in the first two practice sessions of the weekend, while Russell was fastest in Friday evening’s third and final session. But in qualifying, Hamilton made two mistakes in the final group to finish a distant 10th, while Russell will lead the field to green in Saturday night’s race.

Russell took the top spot at the buzzer after Ferrari drivers Carlos Sainz Jr. and Charles Leclerc seemed to conquer the front row. Russell’s late lap then pushed Sainz into second, Pierre Gasly slid into third and Leclerc into fourth.

“That was a tight qualifying, a little closer to pole than I expected. I thought I had pole and then George came to the end very, very quickly,” said Sainz. “We must remain confident that tomorrow we can fight even closer to the front than today, so that we have a chance to go for victory tomorrow and that will be the goal.”

Championship leader Max Verstappen of Red Bull qualified fourth. Verstappen only needs to score three points more than challenger Lando Norris on Saturday evening to win his fourth straight world championship, with the McLaren driver qualifying sixth.

Verstappen struggled for much of the weekend as Red Bull used incorrect rear wing settings on his two cars, but claimed the problems were corrected in time for qualifying.

But the solution did not help Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez, who was eliminated from the first qualifying group for the sixth time this season and will start 16th on Saturday evening in Red Bull’s uphill battle to stay in the race for the constructors’ championship. . The two-time reigning constructors’ winners are third in the standings with three races remaining.

“Unbelievable, it couldn’t be better,” Perez said on his radio. “I can’t find anything to hold on to.”

He later said that Las Vegas has been a struggle for Red Bull.

“I had a lot of trouble with the grip all weekend. It’s really hard to put together a lap,” he said. “I expected a very difficult qualifying and it turned out to be quite difficult.”

Franco Colapinto, one of the drivers sometimes mentioned at Red Bull as a possible replacement for Perez, had his own miserable qualifying session when he crashed hard into the wall as the second qualifying group came to an end. The contact completely destroyed his Williams less than 24 hours before the start of the race.

As well as delaying the start of the third session, the crash may also have had consequences for Colapinto’s future on the F1 grid. He also crashed at the final race in Brazil, when he crashed in 16th entering the straight as the field was under safety car conditions due to rain.

Although unhurt, the incident cost Williams millions of dollars in damages and the Las Vegas crash only added to the growing total. Colapinto was a mid-season replacement for Logan Sargeant, who was sacked for underperformance and will be replaced at Williams by Sainz next year.

He performed better in two of his six races with the team, finishing in the points, but the former F2 driver is now hurting his chances of an F1 seat in 2025.

Williams got a second goal when Alex Albon also failed to leave the first qualifying group.

___

More AP Auto Racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing