George Russell Takes Fourth Career Pole In Las Vegas

George Russell is the Las Vegas Grand Prix poleman. The Mercedes driver 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. This is Russell’s fourth career pole, his third this season, while it’s number 140 for Mercedes. The Anglo-German team has been quickest in every single session this weekend.

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.

In the third free practice session, the Medium and Soft compounds once again did the bulk of the work, even if Mercedes, Aston Martin, Racing Bulls and just Zhou for Sauber started the session by scrubbing in the two sets of Hards allocated for this event. The Chinese driver also scrubbed in a set of Mediums, as did the Aston Martin duo and Russell, the latter actually waiting for his first Q3 run to scrub in a set of C4s.

With temperatures only just creeping over the 10 °C mark, preparing for the flying lap was predictably one of the most important factors in deciding the outcome of qualifying and that proved to be the case. In fact, teams adopted various different approaches to this task, especially in Q3: for example, the Mercedes pair and Verstappen chose to immediately go for a flying lap, while the Ferrari and McLaren duo opted for an additional preparation lap.

The Pirelli Pole Position Award was presented to George Russell by Gianluca Conte, known on social media as QCP (Queen City Prince). The Italian-American content creator is one of the best known food influencers on TikTok where he explains how to prepare Italian dishes to around 13 million followers. QCP has recently published his first recipe book, with the title “Italian/American.”

George Russell – Pole

“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.”

Mario Isola – Pirelli Director of Motorsport

“A spectacular and very closely contested qualifying, the teams evenly matched, producing surprises from start to finish. As was easily predictable, the track is still very dirty and it gets significantly quicker with every passing lap. As previously mentioned, this aspect, combined with the preparation phase prior to the flying lap, played a very important role in determining the outcome of the session.

“In terms of strategy, on paper a one-stop is clearly the quickest, with the Medium and Hard the obvious choices. It’s true that no one has really used the C3 so far this weekend, but this compound is absolutely the one the teams know best and it was also extensively tried here in Las Vegas last year. It is therefore no coincidence that all the drivers have kept two sets of the C3 for tomorrow night’s race: they will definitely use one, while the other can be regarded as a back-up in case the race is neutralised, which is always quite possible on a street circuit. As was the case last year, the majority of drivers will start on the Medium before switching to the Hard as from lap 14. Those going for a more cautious approach, especially if they have been relegated to the back end of the grid, could opt to start with the Hard, going past the halfway point before pitting for Mediums. It’s difficult to imagine the Soft coming into play, apart from anyone planning right from the start to go for a two-stop, to make the most of the Hard with a clear track ahead.

“Graining will make itself felt, especially in the early stages, partly because, as we saw today, track conditions will again be reset as the track will have been reopened to city traffic.”