US GP: Sainz takes pole beating Leclerc by 0.065s
Carlos Sainz took F1 US GP pole in style beating Charles Leclerc by 0.065s as Max Verstappen was only third.
Q1:
The first part in F1 US GP qualifying at Circuit of the Americas started on a sad note with the passing of Red Bull co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz. It was the Ferrari pair heading the standings with Carlos Sainz (1m35.297s) quickest from Charles Leclerc.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was third with Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton fourth despite a lap time deletion. It wasn’t the best of endings for both McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo (1m37.06s) and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon (1m36.068s) who were knocked out in Q1.
Ricciardo was 17th from Ocon, with Haas’ Kevin Magnussen (1m36.949s) in 16th whereas his teammate Mick Schumacher (1m37.111s) was 19th after a big moment. Williams’ Nicholas Latifi (1m37.24s) ended up 20th after teammate Alexander Albon sneaked into Q2.
Q2:
The second part in F1 US GP qualifying saw an early lap deletion for Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel who had only one attempt to make it in the Top 10. Up front, Ferrari’s Leclerc set the pace with a 1m35.246s lap from Verstappen and Sainz.
It got tasty towards the end of the session as both Alfa Romeo made it the Top 10 but for Zhou Guanyu to get his lap time deleted which cost him a place and helped McLaren’s Lando Norris sneak in by just the 0.027s margin from Williams’ Albon (1m36.368s).
Aston Martin’s Vettel (1m36.398s) was 12th from an angry Pierre Gasly (1m36.740s) in the AlphaTauri who complained of problems in Turn 1 and Turn 11. Guanyu (1m36.970s) slotted in 14th from the other AlphaTauri of Yuki Tsunoda (1m37.147s), who had his lap deleted too.
Q3:
The final part of F1 US GP qualifying saw Ferrari set the pace with Leclerc on top after a 1m34.624s lap as teammate Sainz was second – and having provisional pole – from Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton who was third and ahead of Verstappen.
The final runs were superb from everyone as Sainz did a 1m34.356s to take outright F1 US GP pole from in a Ferrari 1-2 which wasn’t to be as despite Leclerc (1m34.421s) being in second, he has a penalty with Verstappen (1m34.448s) ending up third and to start in second.
The Top 3 were separated by 0.092s only. Perez (1m34645s) was fourth – also with penalty – with Hamilton (1m34.947s) only fifth after no improvement on his final attempt. Mercedes teammate George Russell (1m34.988s) was sixth as Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll (1m35.598s) ended up best of the rest in seventh.
McLaren’s Norris (1m35.690s) was eighth from Alpine’s Fernando Alonso (1m35.876s) – who has a penalty as well – with Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas (1m36.319s) rounding the Top 10.
