Andrea Kimi Antonelli will start the United States Grand Prix from pole position as he bids to clinch the world championship this weekend.
The Mercedes driver beat his closest championship rival George Russell by over four tenths of a second. The two Mercedes drivers will be separated by four of their rivals when they line up on the grid.Red Bull looked like strong contenders for pole position as Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar cruised into Q3 having only used a single set of soft tyres each. However Verstappen described his car’s handling as “tricky” after lapping 0.175s off Antonelli on his first run in Q3 and couldn’t get any closer on his second.
He was not alone in that, however: driver after driver failed to improve their time on their final run in Q3. Both Mercedes, Red Bulls and Ferraris also failed to. The latter’s drivers could only manage fourth and fifth on the grid despite leading all three practice sessions.
Lando Norris appeared to be one of the few drivers to improve, temporarily relegating Russell to seventh place. However his final lap time was deleted for a track limits infringement which dropped the reigning world champion to eighth place behind his team mate.
Racing Bulls did not run Liam Lawson in Q3, ensuring Arvid Lindblad out-qualified his team mate. With neither driver likely to out-qualify any of the other eight cars in Q3, this served to minimise the impact of Lindblad’s five-place grid penalty.
Both Alpine drivers were eliminated in the second round of qualifying. Pierre Gasly narrowly failed to make the cut having gone ninth with his final run before the two Racing Bulls drivers improved their times. Liam Lawson put him out by just two hundredths of a second.
The Audi pair also went no further. Gabriel Bortoleto, who has a total penalty of 80 grid places due to multiple power unit component changes, tried to help Nico Hulkenberg with a tow but it wasn’t enough for his team mate to make it through.
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Esteban Ocon failed to make the cut for Q2 with his last run, which left him 17th on the grid. Fernando Alonso made it through despite a small fire developing at the rear of his Aston Martin before he left the pit lane.
Both Cadillacs and the two struggling Williams drivers dropped out in the first round. Alexander Albon was frustrated with the timing of his final run as well as his car’ vexing performance, telling his team “I don’t know what’s going on”.
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