Verstappen ups McLaren tension with pole for USA GP
Max Verstappen has further increased pressure on McLaren and their Championship ambitions by taking pole by nearly 3 tenths over Lando Norris. Leclerc ended up third while Oscar Piastri will have to settle for 7th on the United States Grand Prix starting grid.
Qualifying for the United States Grand Prix kicked off in a similar way as the Sprint had gone by with a crash causing an interruption of normal proceedings. While several drivers were underway to set their first flying laps but no time was set, Isack Hadjar crashed off in the high speed turns of Sector 1, ending up rearwards in the barriers. As Hadjar slammed his steering wheel, the session was red flagged with 14:51 left on the clock and no times on the board.
10 minutes later the session was restarted with Hulkenberg and Bortoleto leading the field to be the first to set a time on the board. As those two completed their laps, Hamilton and Piastri were the last to venture out whereas Sainz returned to the pits and aborted his lap.
Hulkenberg had a decent lap but far from as impressive as what he managed in sprint qualifying. He was quickly demoted out of the top 10 as Lawson and then many others managed to do better. As Norris screwed up his lap an Piastri ended up 6th, Leclerc was provisionally fastest at that time, topping Verstappen and Hamilton.
After Sainz got up into 4th ahead of Alonso, Norris had another go on the same set of soft tyres. This time around, Norris was fastest overall in the second sector but still ended up behind his teammate, in 7th.
Three minutes from the end Russell did a lot better and surpassed Leclerc by 2 tenths. 30 seconds later Antonelli got himself in second to join his teammate as being near certain of a move through to Q2. Verstappen returned the favour a minute later with another best S3 to take back the top of the timing sheet.
Times improved across the board in the final minute with Lawson improving to 5th, Hulkenberg up to 6th and Gasly surprising into 7th. Tsunoda also improved and only just escaped elimination while Colapito, Bortoleto, Ocon and Stroll were out. At least until Albon's last lap was deleted for track limits, dropping the Williams driver to 19th and promoting Colapinto into Q2.
Antonelli kicked off Q2, immediately good for a solid benchmark time which Sainz, Bearman, Lawson and Russell couldn't beat. Norris and then Verstappen on the other hand were easily faster as Piastri ended up 5th, more than 5 tenths slower than Verstappen. The Ferrari duo was last cross the finish line with their first laps, slotting into second and fourth.
As Russell then found his real pace back on his second effort, Hulkenberg dropped out of the top 10 after failing to improve on his earlier time. Tsunoda also didn't improve, just like Colapinto and Lawson. Gasly improved but only to surpass his teammate, resulting in 14th position, insufficient for a spot in Q3.
Stiil, that wasn't the end of surprising moments. Verstappen went fastest, more than 3 tenths ahead of Norris, followed by Russell and Antonelli. Bearman was 5th fastest and Hamilton 9th on tyres he had already used in Q2. Leclerc had the same strategy but then completely wrecked his lap by spinning out of the final corner.
Leclerc was out first of try to recover from his earlier mistake, and he did brilliantly by going second fastest. Just behind him, Verstappen crossed the line late, unable to start a second flying lap.
Norris improved enough to take second back from Leclerc but an extra lap for Verstappen turned out to be unneeded as nobody managed to find enough of an improvement to beat the Dutchman's earlier lap. Championship leader Piastri continued his somewhat disappointing series of runs and ended up only 7th.
