Verstappen takes US sprint pole from Norris

Max Verstappen of Red Bull won the title race at the Grand Prix of the United States after Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri’s title rivals Lando Norris and Piastri won.

Verstappen moved ahead of Norris in Austin by 0.071 seconds at the top of the timesheets in the final lap of the session.

With six races left, Piastri was 0. 309 seconds behind his team-mate, who was 22 points clear of Norris.

Ferrari’s Nico Hulkenberg placed fourth, ahead of George Russell’s Mercedes and Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin.

Carlos Sainz of Williams placed seventh, trailing Lewis Hamilton’s first-placed Ferrari in the flims.

Despite being 63 points clear of the leader, Verstappen’s pole position underlined McLaren’s belief that the Dutchman is still in contention for the title.

Following a revival by his Red Bull team, the four-time champion has won two of his previous three races and finished second in the other.

Verstappen praised the qualifying process, which was “quite close” throughout all the segments.

“It was just about attempting to piece everything together,” he said. Tomorrow in the sprint, I still anticipate a tough battle, but that’s exactly what we want to see, right?

The car can easily evade you at high speed because the track and wind are both very bumpy.

Since the start of practice, Piastri had appeared to be struggling in comparison to Norris, and he had been participating in all three qualifying sessions significantly.

Norris remarked, “It’s disappointing not to be on pole, but not unexpected that we’ve been a little slower than the Red Bull lately.

The difficulty of this track is “a few bits here and there that I could have improved on and a few bumps a little bit wrong.” Otherwise, everything is content.

A pretty scruffy lap, according to Piastri. simply didn’t quite piece together. I feel a little underprivileged to be third in some ways. The car moves at a good speed. It’s not particularly noteworthy; it’s just been a little messy; I’ll try to make things right tomorrow.

The winner of the sprint receives eight points, down one for eighth place.

Hulkenberg’s best Sauber performance of the season came from his first qualifying performance in the top 10 all year.

At the beginning of August, team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto was seventh in Hungary’s top grid position.

The German remarked, “Satisfied, happy, as you might imagine.” “P1 appeared to be too good to be true.” Although we weren’t sure if it was true, we were able to carry on that trend. This weekend, we can probably hold onto it.

Alonso’s sixth place on the Aston Martin grid was both impressive and impressive, surpassing his best grid position since he placed fifth in Hungary.

Only Verstappen and Hamilton could have done it, and the two-time champion was asked by his team to find a second in lap time for his final run.

Alonso remarked, “Definitely happy, ” “. One of the best qualifying events of the year is P6 for us. We try to keep two Ferraris and Williams as close as possible because we know they should be ahead.

“This year, I’ve been doing well, especially in qualifying,” I said. Sometimes we return to our natural positions during races. We continue to push, but it won’t be a season to remember.

Ferrari was struggling on the day, with Leclerc only 0. 6 seconds and almost a second behind.

Hamilton remarked, “That definitely wasn’t the pace we were anticipating. Q1 was looking good in the mirror and Q1 was looking good in the real world.

1. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen

2. McLaren’s Lando Norris

3. McLaren’s Oscar Piastri

4. Sauber, Nicki Hulkenberg

5. George Russell (Mercedes)

6. Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso

7. Williams vs. Carlos Sainz

8. Robert Hamilton (Ferrari)

9. Williams (Williams) Alex Albon

10. (Ferrari) Charles Leclerc