Verstappen Edges Out Hamilton For United States Pole
Calum Gill 23:19 23/10/2021
Red Bull's Max Verstappen snatched pole position from title rival Lewis Hamilton with his final lap in qualifying at the United States Grand Prix.
Hamilton had eclipsed Verstappen's earlier pace-setting time with his final lap but the Dutchman leapfrogged back in front at the death. Verstappen beat Hamilton by 0.209 seconds after a gripping session. Red Bull's Sergio Perez, who held the provisional pole position following the banker laps, eventually took third place. Mercedes's Valtteri Bottas was fourth but starts ninth after a grid penalty. Ferrari's Charles Leclerc will replace the Finn on the second row, while his teammate Carlos Sainz will start fifth.
The two McLarens will follow the Ferraris, with Daniel Ricciardo beating out Lando Norris by under a tenth. Pierre Gasly will start ninth for AlphaTauri, him and his teammate Yuki Tsunoda sandwiching the penalised Bottas. Everyone in the top 10, apart from the two AlphaTauris and Sainz, will start the race on the favoured medium compound. The two cars of the Faenza team and the Spaniard will start the race on the soft compound of rubber.
Red Bull appeared to be favourites for pole after Verstappen headed Hamilton in both of the first two sessions of qualifying. Perez, on excellent form and pretty much a match for Verstappen for once all weekend, then set the pace on the first runs in the final session, ahead of Verstappen, Bottas and Hamilton. The seven-time champion went out early for his final run and pulled out an excellent lap to leap ahead of the Red Bulls, but Verstappen proved too strong to reclaim the place on his final lap.
It was quite a show for a packed crowd of 120,000 at the Circuit of the Americas, basking in 30C temperatures, and a reversal of the form of recent races, in which Mercedes have had the fastest car, and a surprise as a result, especially as Mercedes had appeared so strong in Friday practice. Hamilton said: "I gave it everything. It was a bit of a struggle though qualifying. From first practice onwards, we fell back a little bit, and those guys were incredibly quick in qualifying. I was happy with my last lap. That was pretty much as much as we had."
The rest of the grid
Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and George Russell will all start the United States 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.
