Austin - Qualifying

After an eventful sprint race, the mechanics raced to fix the damaged cars, hoping to prepare them in time for the afternoon's qualifying. All twenty cars were in good enough shape to participate in the grid-setting session, although not all of them stayed in the game for a long time.

A few minutes after Q1 began, before anyone could set a time to beat, Isack Hadjar spun in sector one and put his car in the barrier. He was unharmed, but the accident brought out a red flag that put an early pause to the session. Qualifying was resumed after a few minutes, this time without the Frenchman. Charles Leclerc was the quickest after all drivers completed their first attempts.

 Before the session came to an end, his time was beaten by Max Verstappen and both Mercedes drivers. Hadjar had secured a spot for himself in the elimination zone, so the last seconds of Q1 were all about finding out which driver would join him. Gabriel Bortoleto, Esteban Ocon, and Lance Stroll were the first confirmed names. The fight for the last unwanted spot came down to Franco Colapinto and Alex Albon. For a second, it seemed like the Thai driver had managed to save himself from elimination due to a great final lap, but his attempt was deleted due to exceeding track limits at turn 15. Ultimately, it was Colapinto who advanced to Q2. 

Track limits have been a topic of conversation ever since the weekend began, but they played a leading part in the second part of Saturday's qualifying. Just as Verstappen was comfortably settling on top of the leaderboard, Pierre Gasly saw his lap time deleted. Later on in the session, Nico Hulkenberg and Liam Lawson shared his fate. All three of them ended up in the bottom five, with Yuki Tsunoda and Franco Colapinto making up the other two spots.

After the first Q3 attempts, Verstappen soared to the top, thanks to the lap that put him first by a huge margin. He was almost 0.4s ahead of the driver in P2 and almost five seconds ahead of Leclerc, who spun at the very end of his flying lap. Red Bull's plan was to send him out for a second attempt just as the session was to come to an end. It didn't come to fruition as they miscalculated the timing and, in the end, everything hung on his first attempt. Despite the drivers' best efforts, no one was able to come close to beating it, and the Dutchman took his 47th career pole. 

Order of the grid:

1. Max Verstappen

2. Lando Norris

3. Charles Leclerc

4. George Russell

5. Lewis Hamilton

6. Oscar Piastri

7. Kimi Antonelli

8. Oliver Bearman

9. Carlos Sainz

10. Alex Albon

11. Nico Hulkenberg

12. Liam Lawson

13. Yuki Tsunoda

14. Pierre Gasly

15. Franco Colapinto

16. Gabriel Bortoleto

17. Esteban Ocon

18. Lance Stroll

19. Alex Albon

20. Isack Hadjar