Verstappen beats Hamilton and Perez to Austin F1 pole

Max Verstappen beat his Formula 1 championship rival Lewis Hamilton to pole position for the United States Grand Prix.

It was Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez who was fastest in Q3 after the opening runs, bouncing back from a difficult Q2 where he had to set a second flying lap after losing his first to track limits.

But Perez was denied a maiden F1 pole position with both Verstappen and Hamilton besting his benchmark.

Verstappen was fastest in qualifying for the first time since Zandvoort early last month on a 1m32.910s, some 0.209s quicker than Hamilton.

Perez improved his time with his final effort but it wasn’t enough to beat his team-mate or deny Hamilton a front row start.

Valtteri Bottas will start ninth in the second Mercedes after he qualified in a distant fourth place and will have to serve a five-place grid penalty for taking a sixth Mercedes engine of the year.

Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz edged the McLaren duo to claim fourth and fifth on the grid, with Leclerc almost two tenths clear of Sainz.

Daniel Ricciardo beat Lando Norris to seventh place in qualifying ahead of the AlphaTauri duo of Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda.

Sainz and Tsunoda will start the race on the soft tyres while the rest of the top 10 will start on mediums.

Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and George Russell will all start the US GP from the back of the grid. The trio were knocked out in Q2, with Vettel 12th, Alonso 14th and Russell 15th in qualifying – they’ll start in that order at the back of the grid.

A tow from Alpine team-mate Alonso wasn’t enough to get Esteban Ocon into Q3, as he was knocked out in 11th place by Tsunoda by three tenths.

Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll had to abort his final flying lap in Q1 when Antonio Giovinazzi spun his Alfa Romeo at Turn 2 and brought out a brief yellow flag.

Giovinazzi progressed to Q2 and claimed 12th place on the grid, while Stroll was eliminated along with Nicholas Latifi (Williams), Kimi Raikkonen (Alfa Romeo) and the Haas duo led by Mick Schumacher.

Qualifying Results