George Russell led the way in the final hour of practice at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, as the Mercedes driver topped the timesheets in a session that was red-flagged in the final minutes, preventing some from completing their flying runs.

After a shortened FP1 followed by an extended second practice session on the opening day of action, the drivers returned to the Las Vegas Strip Circuit on Friday night for another opportunity to familiarise themselves with the new 6.201-kilometre venue.

The early laps saw a range of tyre compounds used, along with the occasional excursion; Zhou Guanyu was among those to suffer a lock-up, with front-locking proving to be an issue for some at the circuit, while Kevin Magnussen engaged in some wheel-to-wheel action with Charles Leclerc following a brief run off-track for the Haas.

It wasn’t long before Red Bull showed their hand as Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez took over at the top. Verstappen went quickest with a time of 1m 34.653s, still on his original set of hard compound tyres.

As the session wore on and the track continued to evolve, the field bolted on the soft tyre as they turned their focus to one-lap pace. Some occasional off-track moments started to creep in; even the world champion was not immune, having run off at Turn 12 during a flying lap.