Rosberg seizes pole for United States GP

F1 Grand Prix, GP United States, Circuit of The Americas

Nico Rosberg stepped out of the shadow of his team mate by topping the times for the first time this weekend. When it mattered, Rosberg proved 4 tenths quicker than Hamilton, securing pole for the United States Grand Prix.

Qualifying got underway slowly with Nico Hulkenberg becoming the first man out on track after 4 minutes without any action on track. He was soon followed by his team mate Sergio Perez. The teams already mentioned before they were confident to not encounter traffic issues during qualifying thanks to the absence of Marussia F1 and Caterham F1 this weekend.

7 minutes into the session, Rosberg set the first benchmark, soon proving to be enough to get through. Hamilton followed suit and slotted into second, 4 tenths behind his team mate.

Maldonado surprisingly managed to record the fourth fastest time while Sebastian Vettel did compete in qualifying, albeit setting a time insufficient to get through to Q2.

One minute from the end, Hamilton set the fastest time as both Williams drivers also managed to improve on Rosberg's earlier time.

At the back, Jean-Eric Vergne got eliminated in 15th place, followed by Gutierrez, Vettel and Grosjean.

In Q2, Mercedes soon topped the times again, with Rosberg going fastest, 2 tenths ahead of Hamilton. The latter complained of some vibration on his soft set of tyres, but in the end he didn't need to get out for another run. Massa was third, ahead of Bottas, Ricciardo and Alonso.

In the closing stages, Adrian Sutil managed to put in a great lap in his Sauber to take 10th, eliminating Maldonado, along with Perez, Hulkenberg and Kvyat.

After another short break, the first quick laps of Q3 again show Rosberg emerge on top, still with little more than a tenth in hand over Lewis Hamilton who dominated all free practice sessions this weekend. Bottas and Massa are 3rd and 4th, ahead of Button, Magnussen, Alonso, Ricciardo and Raikkonen. The latter however was 2 seconds off Ricciardo.

Just as on the first attempts, Ricciardo was the first man out. He improved to move up to 4th. Raikkonen improved to 7th while Rosberg moments later cut another 2 tenths off of his pole time. Hamilton was unable to record an improvement on his second lap, keeping second and securing another Mercedes front row on the starting grid for tomorrow's US Grand Prix.

Alonso secured 6th with Button's second lap enough to get ahead of Magnussen, Raikkonen and obviously Sutil to set the 7th fastest time.