With a bumper American crowd of over 100,000 were treated to a show as the best drivers whipped their cars around the Circuit of The Americas – at speed.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen stole pole position away from his championship rival, Lewis Hamilton, by two tenths of a second after a storming lap of a 1:32.910s placed his name at the very top, despite some slight drizzle at the end of the lap.
Hamilton pulled a lap out of the hat by placing his car on provisional pole before being bettered. The British driver trailed the Red Bull’s throughout the session but squeezed his Mercedes in front of the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez by two hundredths of a second. The Mexican was warmly greeted by the Texan crowd, as was Verstappen, and was finally able to be up at the sharp end when needed – making it two Red Bulls against one Mercedes tomorrow.
Valtteri Bottas could only qualify in fourth and half a second adrift, but will drop five places on the grid after another power unit component change.
The tasty Ferrari v McLaren duel shown no sign of fading away as both drivers in the red car placed themselves ahead of both drivers in the papaya. Charles Leclerc produced a starling lap to edge two tenths clear of his teammate for 4th, and trailed Bottas by just over a tenth. Carlos Sainz secured his place behind his teammate to make it two Ferrari’s inside the top five by managing to just edge ahead of the McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo.
The Aussie of Ricciardo saw his sixth place slip from his grasp by just 0.016s, but managed to outqualify his teammate of Lando Norris – who seemed to have the upper hand throughout the weekend. Norris still managed to line up in seventh.
The team formations continue in the top ten as the AlphaTauri duo secured top ten places with Pierre Gasly finally being supported by Yuki Tsunoda, despite Tsunoda’s Q3 lap being a mess. Eighth and ninth have their name on.
Despite falling short of Q3, Esteban Ocon received a handy slipstream from his penalised teammate, Fernando Alonso, but was not able to secure a sacred place. However, penalties means the Frenchman will start in 11th whilst Alonso drops to the back.
Alonso is not the only one to drop to the back. Despite qualifying in 12th and ahead of his targets, Sebastian Vettel will also drop to the final row along with fellow Q2 man George Russell.
The final driver to appear in the second qualifying session was Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi. The Italian attempted to make his way through on the medium tyres, but to no avail and remained in 12th. Giovinazzi scraped his way through to Q2 after a spin on his final run saw him facing backwards on the exit of turn one, leaving him on the bubble.
The most surprising elimination from the opening qualifying session was the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll. Despite a positive Friday at Austin, Stroll and his team seemed to take a large step backwards. The Canadian could only set a lap that was good enough for 16th, but will begin the race in 13th, with Nicholas Latifi’s Williams just behind after qualifying 0.012s away from the Aston.
The final three drivers were ones who did not enjoy their day was the remaining Alfa Romeo of Kimi Raikkonen and both Haas cars. Raikkonen would go on to qualify in 15th, and was left in the distance from his teammate. The Haas duo fulfilled their usual qualifying slots but will be promoted to 16th and 17th, with Mick Schumacher edging out Nikita Mazepin by three tenths. The German was unable to match his heroics from Turkey but was still able to set a time that trailed Raikkonen’s by less then two tenths.
The Motorsport Formula 