QUALIFYING: Chambers shines to secure Las Vegas pole as Pin and Weug settle for fourth and fifth

Red Bull Ford driver Chloe Chambers sailed above the rest to secure pole position on home soil, beating rookies Alisha Palmowski and Alba Larsen around the spectacular Las Vegas Strip Circuit.

In a shock to the remarkably close title battle, Chambers took the top spot in dominant fashion, leaving contenders Doriane Pin and Maya Weug down in P4 and P5 respectively after the American set a time of 2:06.538.

Following a small delay to the start of the session, it came down to McLaren driver Ella Lloyd to set the first flying lap on a busy track, with everyone working to warm their tyres up in the chilly conditions. Her initial effort of 2:10.951 was quickly knocked off the top by title challenger Weug, who put in a purple Sector 1 before getting caught behind Larsen.

There was a possibility that the Tommy Hilfiger driver was attempting to give her MP Motorsport team mate a tow to propel Weug to provisional pole, but Pin managed to go 0.420s clear with 18 minutes of the session remaining.

Larsen and Weug momentarily returned to the pits with plenty of improvements still to come – Chambers demoted Mercedes frontrunner Pin to P2, beating the fastest time set in Practice in the process.

Lap times tumbled as Pin and Chambers continued to exchange P1 on the timesheets, leaving the battle for pole position wide open as the drivers headed into the tense final third of Qualifying.

Meanwhile, Weug lingered down in sixth position before team tactics came into play and a successful tow from Larsen pushed her up to P2, just 0.044s behind Chambers. The Red Bull Ford driver took on the challenge immediately, responding by cutting down her time by nearly half a second.

With a lap around the dazzling Las Vegas track taking over two minutes to complete, everyone had to time their final attempts to perfection in order to maximise the tyre temperature.

Pin had previously been informed by her engineer that she needed a tow for Sector 3, but her PREMA Racing team mate Tina Hausmann did not make it easy to pass at the critical moment, leaving the Mercedes driver down in P4.

Chambers ended the session with a strong 0.380s gap back to Palmowski, with Larsen narrowly behind in third place. Weug will start Race 2 a row back from Pin in P5, setting the stage for a thrilling finale to the title fight.

Hausmann secured P6 ahead of Kick Sauber’s Emma Felbermayr as Nina Gademan, Rafaela Ferreira and Lloyd rounded out the top 10.

WHAT’S NEXT?

The drivers have the rest of the night to reset ahead of a crucial Race 1, which gets underway at 18:15 local time on Friday with Alpine-backed Gademan starting from pole position on the reverse grid.