LAS VEGAS (AP) — George Russell put Mercedes on the pole for the Las Vegas Grand Prix in an upset over teammate Lewis Hamilton, who had been considered the favorite but struggled in Friday night's final qualifying session.
“It feels incredible to be back on pole, we've been so quick all weekend,” Russell said of the fourth pole of his career. “But I'm just so happy and we've got to do some deep diving to find out why we've been so quick because it's been a bit of a surprise.”
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McLaren driver Lando Norris, of Britain, talks with his crew after the final practice session for the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix auto race, Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Red Bull driver Max Verstappen, of the Netherlands, talks with his crew after the final practice session for the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix auto race, Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, of Britain, sits in is carvduring qualifications for the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix auto race, Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz, of Spain, drives during the final practice session for the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix auto race, Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)
Mercedes driver George Russell, of Britain, waits in the garage area prior to a practice session for the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix auto race, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Mercedes driver George Russell, of Britain, waits in the garage before the final practice session for the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix auto race, Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Hamilton was fastest in the first two practice sessions of the weekend with Russell fastest in Friday night's third and final session. But come qualifying, the seven-time Formula 1 champion made two mistakes in the final group and wound up a distant 10th as Russell will lead the field to green in Saturday night's race.
“The car was feeling great today, and it has been a good weekend up to the final segment of qualifying,” Hamilton said. “I had two bad laps in Q3 and that left us P10. I didn’t get the job done. It’s really disappointing as we definitely had the pace for pole position. It will be difficult starting from where we are in P10, but I will try and get up to the podium.”
Russell snagged the top starting spot at the buzzer after Ferrari drivers Carlos Sainz Jr. and Charles Leclerc seemed to sweep the front row. Russell's late lap then pushed Sainz to second, Pierre Gasly slid into third, and Leclerc wound up fourth.
“That was a tight quali, a bit closer to pole than what I was expecting, I thought I had pole and then George came very, very quick at the end,” Sainz said. “We need to stay confident that tomorrow we could be fighting closer to the front even more than today so that tomorrow we might have a chance at going for the win and that will be the target.”
Championship leader Max Verstappen of Red Bull qualified fifth. Verstappen needs only to score three points more than challenger Lando Norris on Saturday night to win his fourth consecutive world championship, and the McLaren driver qualified sixth.
Verstappen had struggled for much of the weekend as Red Bull used an incorrect setup on the rear wings of its two cars but claimed the issues had been corrected in time for qualifying.
"The day started off quite tough but we did our best and maximized everything that we could,” Verstappen said. “We did execute everything really well in qualifying and worked well as a team. I am ultimately happy with how it went — I left everything out there and we ended up in P5. Everything looks a lot better than yesterday and hopefully with the things that we changed on the car, we are a bit more competitive tomorrow in the race.”
Norris was displeased to be behind his title rival for the start.
“We’ve been struggling all weekend — we’ve not had the pace of some of our competitors, and things didn’t come together in qualifying,” Norris said. "It was just too difficult to do a perfect lap. It’ll be difficult tomorrow, but it’s a long race, so we’ll see what we can do.”
The fix on the Red Bull wing didn't help Verstappen teammate Sergio Perez, who was knocked out of the first group of qualifying for the sixth time this season and will start 16th on Saturday night in Red Bull's uphill fight to remain in the race for the constructor championship. The two-time reigning constructor winners are third in the standings with three races remaining.
“Unbelievable, it doesn't get any better,” Perez said on his radio. “I can't find any grip.”
He later said Las Vegas has been a struggle for Red Bull.
“The whole weekend I've been struggling quite a lot with the grip. It is really hard to put a lap together,” he said. “I did expect a very difficult qualifying and it turned out to be quite a tough one.”
Franco Colapinto, one of the drivers sometimes mentioned as a possible replacement at Red Bull for Perez, had his own miserable qualifying session when he crashed hard into the wall as the second qualifying group came to a close. The contact completely destroyed his Williams less than 24 hours before the start of the race and it was unclear if the Argentine could even compete.
Williams said Calapinto's impact was over 50Gs, which required both a Friday night medical check but a Saturday follow, as well. The team said Calapinto will have to be medically cleared to race.
The crash delayed the start of the the third session and was also another mistake for the 21-year-old Colapinto. He also crashed during the last race at Brazil when, running 16th, he crashed coming onto the main straight as the field was under safety car conditions due to rain.
Although unhurt, the incident cost Williams millions of dollars in damage and the Las Vegas crash only added to the growing total. Colapinto was a midseason replacement for Logan Sargeant, who was fired for underperforming, and will be replaced at Williams next year by Sainz.
He'd overperformed in two of his six races with the team by finishing in the points, but the former F2 driver is now hurting his chances to land an F1 seat in 2025.
Williams took a second hit when Alex Albon also failed to advance out of the first qualifying group.
McLaren driver Lando Norris, of Britain, talks with his crew after the final practice session for the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix auto race, Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Red Bull driver Max Verstappen, of the Netherlands, talks with his crew after the final practice session for the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix auto race, Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, of Britain, sits in is carvduring qualifications for the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix auto race, Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz, of Spain, drives during the final practice session for the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix auto race, Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)
Mercedes driver George Russell, of Britain, waits in the garage area prior to a practice session for the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix auto race, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Mercedes driver George Russell, of Britain, waits in the garage before the final practice session for the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix auto race, Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — The United Nations' annual climate talks pushed into overtime Saturday as negotiators pressed on to get a deal on money for developing nations to curb and adapt to climate change.
Several countries were left angry and disappointed at the latest proposed deal from the talks on Friday afternoon. That draft pledged $250 billion annually by 2035, more than double the previous goal of $100 billion set 15 years ago but far short of the annual $1 trillion-plus that experts say is needed.
Top leaders and negotiators — including the U.K.’s Ed Miliband, Germany’s climate envoy Jennifer Morgan and delegates from Central and South American countries — huddled in offices much of Saturday as they hashed out a new deal that both rich and developing nations could agree on. Sources within the negotiations told The Associated Press that the next version of the deal could see a new, higher figure of $300 billion under the right conditions.
But for Panama's negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez even a higher figure is “still crumbs.”
“How do you go from the request of $1.3 trillion to $300 billion? I mean, is that even half of what we put forth?” he asked.
Alden Meyer, of the European think tank E3G, said negotiators now have very little room for error.
“They’ve got to make sure whatever they put on the table is something that can fly. ... Because otherwise we start to lose critical mass as ministers start to leave tonight and into tomorrow,” Meyer said. “So, they are under a deadline, but this is when it gets real.”
The climate talks, called COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan, were scheduled to end Friday. Workers have already begun dismantling the venue for the talks.
Wealthy nations are obligated to help vulnerable countries under an agreement reached at these talks in Paris in 2015. Developing nations are seeking $1.3 trillion to help adapt to droughts, floods, rising seas and extreme heat, pay for losses and damages caused by extreme weather, and transition their energy systems away from planet-warming fossil fuels and toward clean energy.
On Saturday morning, Irish environment minister Eamon Ryan said that he felt there'll be a new number in the next draft.
"We’ll have to see what the final number is. I don’t think it’ll be the one initially published yesterday," Ryan said. “But it’s not just that number — it's how do you get to 1.3 trillion."
Ryan said that any number reached at the COP will have to be supplemented with other sources of finance, for example through a market for carbon emissions where polluters would pay to offset what they emit.
The amount in any deal reached at COP negotiations — often considered a “core” — will then be mobilized or leveraged for greater climate spending. But much of that means loans for countries drowning in debt.
"We have to get agreement quickly. And I hope and believe we can,” Ryan said.
Panama's Monterrey Gomez slammed rich nations for how they've handled negotiations.
“This is what always the developed world does to us in all multilateral agreements. You know, they push and push and push, and at the last minute, they get us tired, they get us hungry, they get us dizzy,” he said.
It means any agreements reached “don’t truly represent the needs of our people," he said.
Some observers were also wary about how negotiations were going Saturday.
“A fundamental principle of U.N. summits is that they are a party driven process, where countries are supposed to be negotiate directly with each other. COP29 however has seen that eroded,” said Mohamed Adow, director of the think tank Power Shift Africa.
"Not only have the open negotiations been replaced largely with backroom deals, but there has also been pressure for developing countries to accept the paltry offer that’s currently on the table. This is a worrying sign and must not be allowed to happen,” he said.
Meyer of E3G said it’s also still up in the air whether a deal will come out of Baku at all.
“It is still not out of the question that there could be an inability to close the gap on the finance issue,” he said. “That obviously is not an ideal scenario.”
Several dozen activists marched in silence outside the halls where delegates meet late Friday, raising and crossing their arms in front of themselves to indicate rejection of the draft text.
Also late Friday, 355 civil society organizations released a letter in support of the G77 and China negotiating group’s rejection of the latest draft.
The letter urged negotiators to “stand up for the people of the Global South," saying that “no deal in Baku is better than a bad deal.”
Lidy Nacpil, a Filipino coordinator with the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development, said activists would still be unhappy if the climate finance number doubles to $500 billion.
“We’re still at this point where we are asking developing countries to stay strong and not just give in to far, far less than what should be,” she said.
Associated Press journalists Ahmed Hatem, Aleksandar Furtula and Joshua A. Bickel contributed to this report.
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
John Podesta, U.S. climate envoy, walks in the hallway during the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
Panama Climate Envoy Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez speaks to members of the media at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
Marina Silva, Brazil environment minister, stands near a sign for the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
John Podesta, U.S. climate envoy, center right, and U.S. Deputy Climate Envoy Sue Biniaz, center, walk outside the venue for the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
A member of security stands with the Baku Olympic Stadium in the background during the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
Attendees pull luggage as they walk into the venue for the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
Australia Climate Minister Chris Bowen, center, walks through a hallway at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit in the early hours of Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)
U.S. Deputy Climate Envoy Sue Biniaz, right, and Wopke Hoekstra, EU climate commissioner, second from right, walk out of an elevator during the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit in the early hours of Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)
John Podesta, U.S. climate envoy, right, walks through the hallways of the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit in the early hours of Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)
People sleep in the Chinese delegation offices at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit in the early hours of Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)
Activists demonstrate in silence protesting a draft of a proposed deal for curbing climate change at the COP29 U.N. Climate Summit, Friday, Nov. 22, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)