Seven-times world champion Hamilton had said he felt like walking away from Mercedes after finishing 10th in Sao Paulo, saying it had been “a disaster of a weekend” and the worst the car had ever been.

The Briton topped the timesheets in Las Vegas with a time of 1:35.001, 0.396s ahead of Russell and 0.953s than McLaren’s Lando Norris in cool, slippery conditions in the Nevada desert.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who won last year’s race and can claim a fourth successive championship in Saturday night’s race, was fifth, 1.037s adrift of Hamilton’s time.

Valtteri Bottas was handed a five-place grid penalty for exceeding the limit of power unit components after starting practice with a new energy store.

The first practice session for the race along the transformed Las Vegas Strip was far more successful than last year when the session lasted a mere eight minutes before Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari was badly damaged by a loose drain cover.