Franco Colapinto to start 15th in the Las Vegas Formula 1 Grand Prix | OneFootball

With the Alpine, he was able to handle the difficult wet track conditions at the start and advanced to the second timed session.

That demanding maneuver to correct the trajectory of the Alpine A525 while trying to improve his time, and then an off-track excursion, prevented Franco Colapinto from achieving a better position in the qualifying for the Las Vegas Formula 1 Grand Prix. He finished 15th at the end of the second timed session, with a best lap of 1m53.683s out of the 17 laps he completed during the nighttime session held on the Nevada street circuit.

Like the rest of the participants, using rain tires (Full Wet), Colapinto managed to complete 9 laps at the start of the session in the first qualifying round. Although he did a lap with the intermediate compound, he replaced them with a brand new set of blue tires, securing 11th place there with a 1m54.847s, 1.703s behind George Russell and 0.415s behind his teammate Pierre Gasly.

In the second part of the session, he went out again with another new set of rain tires, completing 8 laps with a best time of 1m53.683s. He couldn’t improve further because he had to correct his trajectory while trying to better that time, which left him 15th, 2.478s behind Russell, who once again led with Mercedes, while Gasly managed to advance to the final round where the Top 10 was decided.

How the third free practice went

With varying track grip, affected by rain and low temperatures, the last practice session for the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the 22nd round of the Formula 1 world championship, took place. There, Argentine Franco Colapinto completed preparations with the Alpine A525, in which he finished 15th with a time of 1m36.305s after 15 laps on the 6,201-meter street circuit.

After waiting 32 minutes in the garage, and while several drivers were running on intermediate tires to check track conditions and set the first references as the asphalt dried, Colapinto and his teammate Pierre Gasly were authorized by the Alpine F1 Team to take to the track also on the green compound, with which they did a couple of laps before quickly switching to brand new soft tires.

With the red compound, the Argentine worked in two stints: during the first, he ran 7 laps, setting a best time of 1m38.138s while a few drops fell on the Nevada venue; after that, he stopped again in the garage and, following the usual checks and adjustments to the A525, Colapinto returned with another fresh set of soft tires, completing another eight laps and setting his best lap of the night at 1m36.305s.

Gasly, meanwhile, completed 13 laps and finished tenth with a 1m35.562s, establishing a gap of 0.743s between him and the driver from Pilar. It should be noted that, like the rest of the drivers, they were unable to work on the setup and race pace of their cars with full tanks and will now face qualifying, which will take place in the early hours of Saturday—Argentina time—starting at 1:00 a.m.

RUSSELL AND HIS MERCEDES SET THE BEST TIME; THE McLARENS AT THE BACK

On the weekend of his 150th F1 race, George Russell topped the timesheets in the third practice session of the Las Vegas GP, and with his Mercedes managed to set a 1m35.054s to become the third driver to lead a session this round (as Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris had done before), beating Max Verstappen’s Red Bull by 0.227s and Alexander Albon’s Williams by 0.821s.

More than a second behind was the Racing Bulls of Isack Hadjar, ahead of the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton, who during practice managed to resolve a difficult situation when he encountered several cars braking at the end of the longest straight and executed a maneuver to avoid colliding with other cars.

The Top 10 was completed by the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli, the Racing Bulls of Liam Lawson (who led the session for a few seconds), the Aston Martins of Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso, and the Alpine of Gasly. Meanwhile, both Norris and his teammate Oscar Piastri, currently leader and runner-up in the world championship, ended up with their McLarens in 20th and 19th positions, respectively.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.