Red Bull's Max Verstappen snatched the Austin Sprint pole position from McLaren's Lando Norris in a close battle with an impressive last-gasp effort at the Circuit of The Americas. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo delivers drivers' reactions.

Red Bull

“It was nice to finish on Pole for the Sprint. In practice, we were fine tuning the car and understanding the track. The track got even bumpier which made it more difficult to drive so we kept making some little adjustments to the car. In Sprint Qualifying it was a little bit better.

"Of course, we went through the compounds and onto the Soft tyre on the final run and we only had one go with it and it paid off. The grip actually improved quite a bit on the Soft tyre compared to the Medium tyre. For us it was all about putting it together and the wind was also changing around quite a bit.

"To be first was good, it was close and I expect it to also be close tomorrow. We know that in the race the McLarens step it up so it will be tough.”

“I ran out of time to get my final lap in and it is something we will have to look into because we should have been here talking about a much more successful Friday. It was a bit of a messy session, I don’t know exactly what happened because we weren’t close to getting the lap in, something went wrong and we lost our opportunity, it’s a real shame.

"It’s very frustrating because sometimes these things are out of your control. We need to make sure the rest of the weekend goes better and we get the best out of the car and are where we can and should be in the order.”

McLaren

“P3 for the Sprint tomorrow. It wasn’t my best lap in SQ3 as it was a little scrappy in places, but I’m relatively happy with the position, and we have really good pace in the car. I know where I need to tidy it up for Qualifying tomorrow, so we’ll aim to have a good Sprint in the morning and then fine-tune for the afternoon.”

“Pretty happy with that. Of course, I would have liked to be on Pole, but it’s not a big surprise to be P2. There are a couple of little things here and there that I could have improved on, but that’s just the difficulty of this track. Otherwise, all good and we’re in a good position for tomorrow.”

Kick Sauber

“I’m really satisfied with how things went today. We looked strong from the start in P1, and it was nice to see that performance carry through. The car felt good: it was in a great window, right in the sweet spot, and the lap times backed that up.

"I enjoy driving around this track; it’s good fun and quite rewarding when everything clicks. The sprint will be challenging with plenty of quick cars around us, but we’ll fight hard and try to turn this momentum into a strong result.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t have much to say about today. My first timed lap was cancelled due to track limits, and the second attempt was unfortunately not enough to make the cut. It’s obviously disappointing, especially since our car felt quite good earlier today during free practice.

"Looking at tomorrow, we’ll use the Sprint as an extra chance to learn something more about this track and how our car behaves here, before putting our focus on delivering in Qualifying ahead of the main Race.”

Mercedes

"That wasn’t the maximum we could have achieved today but it’s fair to say that we were never in the fight for Sprint pole. Nico (Hulkenberg) put in an amazing lap to take P4; having a Kick Sauber ahead of us wasn’t what we expected but well done to him and his team.

"As we’ve been saying all year, on our good days we’re in the battle for the win and on our bad days we are P5. We just got P5 today; hopefully we have a better race car than a qualifying one though. We also know it can be tricky to hit the ground running on Sprint weekends so we will do what we can in the Sprint race itself and then look to improve the car for qualifying and Sunday’s race."

"It is disappointing to get knocked out in SQ2 and by such a small margin too. I felt good in the car in SQ1 and only needed the one lap to get through. I had two big lock-ups on my final lap in SQ2 though and that ultimately cost me

" We definitely had the pace to get into SQ3 and fight for the top five, so it is frustrating. We will reset overnight though, push as hard as we can in the Sprint and then try to have a better qualifying tomorrow afternoon.

"Our long run pace in FP1 was more encouraging than our single lap work. Hopefully that bodes well for Sunday. We know that we won’t be able to show that though if we don’t start near the front of the field. We will work hard to improve the car ahead of qualifying, using the Sprint to build our learning, and try our best to have a better session than we’ve just enjoyed."

Aston Martin

"I'm happy with P6 today. It's one of our better qualifying sessions of the season and we put together some good laps. It felt like we really maximised the opportunity, but we do have some fast cars starting behind us, so we'll see if we can score points in the Sprint tomorrow."

"I thought we did what we could today, qualifying in P14 for the Sprint tomorrow. In SQ2, I had a snap in T6 during my second push lap and aborted the lap - we could have probably found a couple of tenths there. But in hindsight, you can always look back and find a bit here and there. Let's see what we can do tomorrow in the Sprint – it's a very tight midfield and Sprint weekends are intense, but I like it."

Williams

"We thought SQ3 was on the cards today but to have both cars through was nice. We struggled a bit still and didn't feel as comfortable compared to practice, but nevertheless, a nice surprise. We’re starting the Sprint on the clean side of the grid, so we want to keep it tidy and with points on the table let’s see what we can do tomorrow."

"It’s encouraging to be P7 in Sprint qualifying, especially with the little track action I’ve had today after missing most of FP1. Considering the circumstances, I’m happy with my laps on both compounds and I’ll do my best to grab some points in the Sprint race. We’ll also take the learnings for tomorrow’s main qualifying and hopefully we can repeat or improve today’s result."

Ferrari

"My lap in SQ3 was clean and I didn’t leave anything on the table. Maybe we could have fine tuned the car a bit more if we had done some more runs on the Medium compound this morning, but the maximum we could have gained there would be a tenth. We will give everything to find something more for tomorrow, but for now it seems that this is the potential of our car this weekend."

"We’ll need to review today’s session, as the car showed promising pace and I was generally satisfied with its balance in FP1 and SQ1. However, for the rest of Sprint Qualifying, I found it challenging to maintain that pace. We’ll regroup tonight to discuss the best approach for tomorrow’s race given our starting position."

Racing Bulls

“I had a good feeling at the end of FP1, but in that session it felt completely different. In SQ1, I managed to put a lap together to get the car through and it felt quite competitive. I expected to make a good step in SQ2, but we committed to a single push lap and the car was very difficult to drive, it was quite challenging out there.

I still think we’re fast, and tomorrow is all about maximising everything and putting it all together. Starting from 12th will make it tough to score points, but we’ll push hard and aim for Q3 in Qualifying.”

“We got hit by traffic on our laps, so we’ll have a look tonight on whether we should have run earlier in the session as opposed to later, which may have mitigated the issue. However, there are positives to take away as the car is very fast. Points will be tricky, but we'll be pushing for that and will continue to work on building a strong car for Sunday."

Alpine

“I'm actually quite pleased with today's result in Sprint Qualifying. The last few weekends have been tricky for us and we have not really been in the mix with our competitors. The team has worked really hard in the week between Singapore and here to find some improvements and it was important to find more performance to put ourselves back in the mix, which I feel we have done today.

"We always want more than what we achieved today but, looking at the work everyone has put in, we can be pleased as we have a good baseline to work from for the rest of this weekend.

"Tomorrow for the Sprint, we need to try and maximise the start and gain some places and see where we end up. It is a tricky track and we will just take one session at a time and try to maximise what we have every time we are on track.”

“It has not been the smoothest of days and with only one Practice session, we were not able to get on top of some of the issues we have been facing and fine tune our package. I think there is potential in the car and our position is not necessarily reflective of where we could be if we manage to put everything together.

"I have been struggling a lot for grip, especially when putting the power down on traction. It did not feel great on either run in SQ1 and the wind also seemed to pick up later in the day, which made it a bit more unpredictable. This track lends itself to good racing so let's see what we can do tomorrow, but also keeping one eye on Qualifying and the Grand Prix itself.

"We will try our best to move forward from our starting position and also use the track time to keep learning about what improvements we can bring between the sessions.”

Haas

“It was a very bad first lap unfortunately, I went into Turn 1 and lost the rear, so the first lap was quite compromised. On the second lap, I took the flag basically with the entire group around me, including Ollie.

"Our first lap wasn’t good enough, so it clearly wasn’t an ideal session but we’ll try and get the best out of it tomorrow. The Sprint is now going to be an experiment, we’re far from scoring points, so we’ll do the best we can and learn as much as we can about the car.”

“Sprint Quali today was a big shame. This morning I felt pretty happy with the car, but in qualifying I only got one lap, and I’m still learning the track, so that lap wasn’t my best, but I wasn’t expecting that lap to be my best. That’s why in SQ1 you have two laps to at least get a feeling of the car.

"I put the update on in between sessions, so a lot of things changed. We’ll need to review why we didn’t make it around in time, but there was no point in pushing flat out to make it as my tyres would’ve been gone.”