UNITED STATES GP – Lando Norris beats Max Verstappen to pole by three hundredths
Lando Norris beat his championship rival Max Verstappen by three-hundredths of a second to take pole for the United States Grand Prix. The McLaren driver set a 32.330 on his first attempt in Q3 after George Russell crashed at the penultimate corner when drivers were forced to abort their final attempts.
Verstappen had produced a quick first sector and appeared in with a strong chance of improving the leading time, while Norris seemed unlikely to better his earlier effort after failing to match his previous time for the first part of the lap. The two title rivals starting on the front row sets out an interesting race with fifty-four points between them in the championship.
Carlos Sainz put his Ferrari third nearly three-tenths behind Verstappen and nearly a tenth ahead of teammate Charles Leclerc. Oscar Piastri was fifth which should put him into the position to be able to support Norris in the race, the Australian was just over two-tenths behind the Monacan.
Russell’s crash was just an ending to a poor qualifying for Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton a five-time winner in Austin being knocked out in Q1. The seven time champion was off the pace on used tyres to begin with, and then was able to find minimal improvement even with a fresh set of the soft compound.
Russell lost the rear of his Mercedes through the penultimate corner, plunging left-hander and spinning off through the gravel trap on the outside to hit the barriers hard, with the resulting double yellow flags meaning no drivers were able to complete their laps.
Mercedes had been expected to fight for the front row after the strong sprint qualifying on Friday, adding to that is the fact that Hamilton is the most successful driver in Austin, his struggles left him nineteenth on the grid and behind his former teammate Valtteri Bottas.
Hamilton appeared to suggest that a suspension issue during the Sprint had thrown him off in selecting the correct balance for the remainder of the weekend, and added that he may now accept a pit lane start in order to alter his setup before the race.
He said, “In the Sprint we had some sort of failure from the formation lap on the front suspension. I had that throughout the Sprint race. That made the balance really difficult. We changed a couple of things which pushed us in the direction in what we would have done yesterday. The car was a nightmare in qualifying.”
Russell added, “I went into the penultimate corner turned in, then the thing went on me, caught me by surprise. Maybe I was over-pushing. Pretty disappointed with the damage caused to the car and the work that will go on tonight and a little confused that both Lewis and I were in the fight for pole yesterday and today we were nowhere.”
Pierre Gasly put in a strong session putting his Alpine seventh just over four hundredths behind Russell and ahead of Fernando Alonso. But the Frenchman was placed under investigation for a pit lane incident with Verstappen. Kevin Magnussen was ninth as Sergio Perez had his lap time deleted for track limits.
Yuki Tsunoda missed out on Q3 by just over a quarter of a second, RB plan to use Liam Lawson who has a grid penalty to give the Japanese driver through to the final part of qualifying. Lawson however showed good pace running as high as third in Q1 but then failed to show that pace in the second part of qualifying.
The RB driver was nearly four hundredths ahead of Nico Hulkenberg after the Haas driver locked up and had a big snap of oversteer at Turn One. Esteban Ocon was thirteenth a quarter of a second ahead of Lance Stroll, who couldn’t match his teammates jump out of the drop zone at the end of the session.
Magnussen and Stroll jumped from the drop zone with their final laps right at Q1’s end, which shuffled down Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto for Williams. Valtteri Bottas was two thousandths ahead of Hamilton while his teammate Guanyu Zhou was last
Related
- United States GP – Sprint Result
- UNITED STATES GP – Max Verstappen wins the sprint beating Carlos Sainz by nearly four seconds
- United States GP – Sprint Qualifying Result
- UNITED STATES GP – Carlos Sainz leads a Ferrari one-two in practice ahead of title contenders Lando Norris and Max Verstappen
- PRIXVIEW – United States Grand Prix 2024