Lewis Hamilton dishes out blame after Q2 disaster at F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix

Charles Leclerc took pole position, with the Ferrari star hoping to achieve a sixth race win of his career.

Max Verstappen will move up to second after Carlos Sainz Jr was slapped with a grid penalty, with George Russell and Pierre Gasly sharing the second row in third and fourth respectively.

​On the team radio, after failing to make the top 10, Hamilton bemoaned the pace of his car.

"Couldn't go any faster mate," he said over the Mercedes team radio.

And Hamilton has now shed light on his failure to qualify from Q2, blaming the Mercedes car for his underwhelming performance.

"Yeah it's not that great," he told Sky Sports.

"Yesterday it was feeling a little bit better and we were looking relatively competitive.

"We made some changes overnight, P3 was pretty poor, it kind of put me on the back foot and I was just trying to recover in qualifying which is never the place to do so.

"But yeah, I was struggling with grip, the car just wasn't working for me.

"And it's definitely difficult when you can't even get through Q2, but it is what it is."

When asked about the main event on Sunday, Hamilton said: "My guess is as good as yours.

"One with the car and two with the tyre graining, we had massive graining like everybody, we had more graining in P3."

While it was a difficult day for Hamilton, Leclerc was left delighted after securing pole.

The Ferrari star said: “Of course I'm happy, first in Las Vegas, obviously it's an incredible event.

"However, I'm a bit disappointed with my laps in Q3. I didn't do a good enough job but it was enough for P1 so that is all we need.

"Now all focus is on tomorrow and putting everything together to focus on the race.

"Normally that is where we lack most performance, so I will hope we can put it all together and win here."

Verstappen has been critical of the Las Vegas Grand Prix so far.

Yet the three-time World Champion was pleased by his own performance in Sin City as he targets a stunning 17th victory of the season.

“It's quite cold out there, it's quite slippery and of course, being on a street circuit as well you try and get as close as you can to the walls but that's not always very straightforward," he explained.

"That was enjoyable, I do think we maximised today, already the weekend so far we've been lacking a bit of one lap performance and that was also quite clear in qualifying, but I hope tomorrow in the race we are good on the tyres again and we can work our way forward."

He added: "It felt good yesterday, I would have liked a bit more pace but tomorrow is going to be a tough one, first one here you don't know if there are going to be any safety cars, it's a very long straight, a lot of racing will happen there and I hope we are good on the tyres."

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Hamilton will have plenty of work to do when the Las Vegas GP commences on Sunday.

Yet he appears to be resigned to struggling again, with Mercedes well off the pace this season.

Whether he can bounce back from Saturday's disaster and improve remains to be seen.