Kimi Antonelli will start the United States Grand Prix from pole position after a 1:34.035 in Q3, 0.179 seconds ahead of Max Verstappen and 0.215s clear of Isack Hadjar, who put both Red Bulls on the second and third places of the grid.

The top five finished within 0.276s of each other: Charles Leclerc was fourth, 0.232s off, and Lewis Hamilton fifth. George Russell, 102 points behind Antonelli in the standings before the weekend, qualified sixth.

Antonelli on top, Red Bull behind

Antonelli’s pole lap came on lap 14, on a one-lap-old set of softs, after he was second-fastest in Q2 (1:34.278). Verstappen’s 1:34.214 beat Hadjar’s 1:34.250 by 0.036s. In the three fastest laps, Verstappen was quickest in the first sector (25.254), while Antonelli took the second (37.297) and the third (31.428).

Leclerc was the fastest man in Q2 with a 1:34.198, quicker than the 1:34.267 he set in Q3, which left him fourth. Russell’s Q2 time of 1:34.305 was also better than his Q3 lap (1:34.476).

Norris loses a lap at Turn 19

Race Control issued six notices deleting lap times for track limits in qualifying, four of them at Turn 19, and three of them on the last laps of Q3. Verstappen’s 1:34.482 and Hadjar’s 1:34.363 were slower than their official times, so they cost nothing.

Lando Norris’s did. His second Q3 run produced a 1:34.379, deleted at Turn 19, which would have been sixth-quickest of Q3, behind Hamilton’s 1:34.311 and ahead of Russell’s 1:34.476, and 0.670s better than the 1:35.049 on which he is classified eighth. Piastri was seventh on 1:34.803.

Who went out, and where

Q1 ended with Esteban Ocon (1:36.531), Lance Stroll, Carlos Sainz, Alexander Albon and the two Cadillacs of Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas out; Norris was the fastest in that segment with a 1:35.029. In Q2, the cut-off was razor-thin: Lawson went through in tenth on 1:35.058, 0.022s ahead of Pierre Gasly, who was out with Nico Hülkenberg, Gabriel Bortoleto, Franco Colapinto, Fernando Alonso and Oliver Bearman. Bearman’s 1:35.592 had been deleted at Turn 11, but it would not have been enough to make Q3.

Lawson reached Q3 but did not set a time, so he starts tenth. His Racing Bulls team-mate Arvid Lindblad was ninth on 1:36.049.

Stewards and conditions

The stewards looked at two incidents for failing to follow the Race Director’s instructions on the maximum delta time, one in Q1 (Ocon, Piastri, Russell, Antonelli and Colapinto) and one in Q2 (Piastri and Colapinto). They took no further action on either. Gasly, Bearman and Verstappen each received a black-and-white flag for driving unnecessarily slowly.

It stayed dry: air temperature went from 29.9°C to 29.7°C, track temperature from 39.7°C to 37.5°C and humidity from 40% to 38%.

The three pole laps, compared

The video below puts Antonelli, Verstappen and Hadjar on the circuit together, each on their official best Q3 lap, at twice the real speed. The track takes the colour of whoever was quickest in each sector, and the finish is replayed in slow motion.

Qualifying · Antonelli, Verstappen and Hadjar on their best Q3 laps (x2 speed).

What to watch in the race

The United States Grand Prix starts at 20:00 UTC on Sunday: 15:00 in Austin and 21:00 in Paris, where the clocks go back overnight. Two Red Bulls and two Ferraris start within 0.276s of Antonelli’s pole time, and he needs to win to have any chance of clinching the title in Austin.

Sources

Classification, laps, tyres, deletions, stewards’ messages and weather: OpenF1 session results, laps, stints, race control messages and weather for the United States Grand Prix qualifying (session 11392). Deletion counts are the number of Race Control notices that name a lap time.

Championship context: our United States GP preview and FP3 report.