Practice 3 started with a slippery track as it was declared wet after rain fell a couple hours before the session started. While it had been drying out, the cold Las Vegas weather meant it was still damp.
When the light went green at the start of the season, only three drivers went out as the teams waited for the track to dry more during the hour long session.
Oscar Piastri was sent out to gain information for McLaren, reporting that the track was too wet for slicks. He then set the first benchmark lap time with a 1:47.162.
After gaining some insight into the track and tyre conditions, half of the field came out to warm up and set their first times. Hamilton pipped the leaderboard with a 1:45.758 while other drivers struggled to stay on the main track, sliding into run off areas.
As the drivers stayed out and warmed up their cars, they started setting faster times. Piastri got back ahead with a 1:43.896, now 10 seconds behind the best lap times from FP2 yesterday.
Liam Lawson was 2 seconds off Pastry with his initial times while warming uo the car, while his Racing Bulls teammate Isack Hadjar showed promising pace in 5th.
Lewis Hamilton was the first to set a time under 1:43.0 a third of the way through the session, while Lawson also went over a second quicker, making it ahead of Hadjar to take 5th from him.
Lawson then dropped back to 9th as the drivers started setting closer lap times with warmer cars, before most of them went in to the pits for a break.
Max Verstappen consistently sat in the top 5, but wasn’t able to break the top two while his Red Bull teammate Tsunoda struggled. He wasn’t able to set a fast time, before puncturing his tyre halfway through the session when his best time was 2.449s behind Hamilton in front.
Kick Sauber, Alpine, and Aston Martin all waited for the track to dry and warm up, as none of them sent a driver out in the first half of the session. Franco Colapinto was then the first of their drivers to go out with 28 minutes left.
Charles Leclerc then set the new fastest time with a 1:41.867 as the drivers started coming out with soft tyres, getting one big push lap before forecasted rain was set to fall.
The Red Bulls cars came out roaring as Verstappen improved on Lecrlercs time by over two seconds, just before Tsunoda took the lead with a 1:38.896.
The leader kept changing as drivers improved their times with soft tyres and warm cars, before Verstappen took the top spot either an impressive 1:35.646, showing the difference of times of a dry and wet track.
With 10 minutes left in the session, Lawson came out of the pit in 12th, dropping to 14th as others improved their times while he warmed up the car.
Lawson then showed his pace by going to the top of the leaderboard with a 1:35.637 with only 4 minutes left, the first driver to get a final flying lap time in. He then dropped to 9th as drivers got fast laps in, with Verstappen retaking the lead from him.
George Russell took the session lead with a quick 1:34.054 as Verstappen ran off the track during his final lap where he had a purple sector 1.
Both Racing Bulls finished well into the top ten as Lawson finished in 7th with a time 1.385 seconds behind Russell, and Hadjar finished up in 4th.
The McLaren cars finished at the back after running up the front throughout the session as they both had car issues in the last 10 minutes.
The drivers will all come back out today at 5pm NZST for qualifying ahead of the Grand Prix race at 5pm tomorrow.
