On Sunday, Max Verstappen (Red Bull) will only be in sixth place on the grid at the US Grand Prix. However, he can start the sprint on Saturday from pole position. He set the best time in SQ3 with 1:34.538 minutes.
However, it was close: Charles Leclerc (Ferrari/+0.055 seconds), Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes/+0.069) and Lando Norris (McLaren/+0.101) all finished within around a tenth of a second behind the world champion!
The top 10 was completed by Oscar Piastri (McLaren/+0.356), Carlos Sainz (Ferrari/+0.401), Sergio Perez (Red Bull/+0.503), George Russell (Mercedes/+0.661), Alexander Albon (Williams/+0.828) and Pierre Gasly (Alpine/+1,359).
“I think the last lap wasn’t particularly good,” admits Verstappen. The fact that it was still enough to reach pole shows “that the car works pretty well.” On Friday, the world champion lost pole because he exceeded the track limits.
“It was a little closer than yesterday,” explains Hamilton and emphasizes: “The fact that we are so close in Austin shows that we are making progress as a team. That is very positive. Hopefully we are in a good position in both races to put the leaders under pressure.”
What was going on with Max Verstappen in SQ2?
The Dutchman spun in turn 9 on his second attempt – but that didn’t matter. His time from the first run (1:35.181 minutes) was easily enough to get into SQ3 and even set the fastest time in the second shootout segment.
However, Daniel Ricciardo (AlphaTauri), Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), Esteban Ocon (Alpine), Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) and Guanyu Zhou (Alfa Romeo) were off work. At least a little progress for Aston Martin after losing both cars in Q1 on Friday.
Stroll personally even ended a long dry spell, as he had previously been eliminated in Q1 or SQ1 six times in a row since Monza.
Why was George Russell subsequently punished?
As on Friday, the Brit couldn’t quite keep up with his teammate. And he even subsequently lost his eighth place because he got in Leclerc’s way in turn 19 in a scene at the end of SQ1.
“Penalty for Mr. Russell,” the Ferrari driver radioed and the race stewards announced an investigation. The stewards came to the conclusion that Russell did indeed hold up Leclerc. He therefore has to drop three places and will only be in eleventh place on the grid in the sprint.
It was an eventful qualifying for the Brit anyway, as his radio didn’t work properly at the start. “I can hear all the engineers,” he complained about too much radio traffic. “It was quite a distraction,” he revealed after the shootout.
A short time later, Mercedes got the problem under control. He explains his poor performance in SQ3 as follows: “I only had one set of used tires because I had used an additional set yesterday.”
Teammate Hamilton also had a tricky moment. At the end of SQ1 there was a misunderstanding with Yuki Tsunoda, in which the record world champion almost rear-ended the AlphaTauri driver. But he escaped with horror.
Did Nico Hülkenberg make it into SQ2 this time?
The German had already failed in Q1 in qualifying on Friday – and didn’t make it into SQ2 again on Saturday. However, finishing 16th was extremely thin, just 0.012 seconds behind Ricciardo, who made the cut in 15th.
Teammate Kevin Magnussen was also eliminated in SQ1 in 17th place, as was Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo) in 18th place. “I just couldn’t find the grip,” explains the Finn. The last two places were taken by Tsunoda and local hero Logan Sargeant (Williams).
The Japanese attributes his elimination to the fact that at the end of SQ1 he only crossed the line after the clock had expired and was therefore no longer able to start a fast lap. “It was just a miscommunication [mit dem Team]” he says angrily.