Las Vegas - Qualifying

Only three races separate us from the end of the season, and the tensions couldn't be higher. The excitement was only increased by the rain, which made the circuit glisten underneath the night lights. Instead of softs and mediums, intermediates and wets were bolted onto the twenty cars fighting for their spot on the grid. Before qualifying began, one thing was sure: no result was off the table. 

Although different tires could be seen on track at the beginning of Q1, the great performance of the two Aston Martins sporting the wets quickly convinced everyone that this was the tire to be on. After a quick change of rubber, the drivers spent the rest of the session completing lap after lap on the ever-improving circuit. Times only got shorter with every turn around the track, meaning that no one was truly safe from the dreaded elimination zone. Names jumped on the leaderboard, times were constantly deleted, and yellow flags continually appeared and disappeared all over the circuit as drivers went wide and left the track at different corners. Interestingly enough, we didn't see anyone make contact with the wall until the last moments of the hectic session. 

With only a minute left on the clock, Oliver Bearman made contact with the wall by turn 14. The damage he sustained was relatively mild, so he managed to reverse and return to the truck, but his incident impacted the laps of the drivers behind him, who had to significantly slow down. For Lewis Hamilton, it meant that if he wanted to move through to Q2, he needed to start a flying lap immediately after finishing the previous one. The situation would have been the same for Alex Albon had he not hit the wall by that same turn, destroying both his front wing and his chances of making it out of the elimination zone. Antonelli, Bortoleto, Tsunoda, and, unfortunately for all Ferrari fans, Hamilton, joined him in the bottom five.

Q2 kept the tense atmosphere going, with the wets staying on for yet another session. Lance Stroll got brave enough to change them for intermediates halfway through, but the move did not pay off. Yellow flags still flew over the circuits, drivers still slid on the wet tarmac, and improving times remained a herculean task. Up until the last moment of the session, it wasn't entirely sure who would make it through, with even the championship contenders, like Oscar Piastri, lingering around the elimination zone. In the end, it was Hulkenberg, Sainz, Bearman, and Colapinto who joined Stroll in finishing their day early. 

The conditions changed in Q3, with the drivers opting for intermediates, rather than full wets. What stayed the same was the frantic atmosphere brought on by drivers constantly going off the track and never being further than an inch away from disaster. The new type of tire and a drying track provided incredible opportunities for improvement, with drivers able to shave full seconds off their times. It quickly became clear that everything would come down to the driver's very last attempts. By all means, whoever saw the checkered flag last would have the biggest chances of starting the race from the pole. 

With only two minutes left on the clock, it was Lando Norris who held the provisional pole, but the times of all ten drivers left in the session continued to improve. Although both Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen managed to overtake him at the top, the Brit came back with an incredibly quick final flyer that helped him finish the session on top. After a big mistake, his teammate and main championship rival stayed fifth, a far cry from the result he would have hoped to achieve

Order of the grid:

1. Lando Norris

2. Max Verstappen

3. Carlos Sainz

4. George Russell

5. Oscar Piastri

6. Liam Lawson

7. Fernando Alonso

8. Isack Hadjar

9. Charles Leclerc

10. Pierre Gasly

11. Nico Hulkenberg

12. Lance Stroll

13. Esteban Ocon

14. Oliver Bearman

15. Franco Colapinto

16. Alex Albon

17. Kimi Antonelli

18. Gabriel Bortleto

19. Yuki Tsunoda

20. Lewis Hamilton