The Friday in F1 US GP saw a hectic day with Red Bull back on top while McLaren dropped behind in the pack with Mercedes and Ferrari close.
The return of F1 in US GP at Circuit of the Americas after a mini break on Friday saw a return on the top step for Red Bull’s Max Verstappen who took pole in the sprint race after edging out Mercedes’ George Russell by just the 0.012s margin. The Dutchman looked comfortable mostly during the day.
Despite the drama off-track, Verstappen remained unfazed and feels good with the race pace too, as was his teammate Sergio Perez. The Mexican, though, was knocked out in SQ2 after he was unable to get the improvement he was looking for from the first session to the second.
He was not the only drop as McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was knocked out in SQ1 itself after track limits caught him out. Both he and Lando Norris did not look overly comfortable as they have been in the recent races but are hopeful of a better race pace to take on Red Bull.
The improvement, meanwhile, came from Mercedes after a lacklusture FP1. Russell held onto the top stop until Verstappen came through but the changes they made between the sessions helped them. Even though Lewis Hamilton was seventh, but he had pace as he suggested.
The yellow flag caught him out a bit, otherwise he would have been close the Top 3. The drop on the soft tyre happened for the Ferrari pair where Charles Leclerc was third and Carlos Sainz fifth. They looked good on the medium compound but lost out on the red-walled tyres.
Verstappen: “We had a good day. Of course, Sprint Qualifying is always very difficult. [With the tyres] you do medium, medium and then a soft. You never really know how much you can push but I’m happy with today. I think all day the car was working quite well, and of course I’m very happy to be first. It’s been a while so very pleased with today. Making the car driveable and good on the tyres in the race. That for us is the key. We’ll do the best we can tomorrow in the Sprint, but we also know of course the most points are available on Sunday, so that’s where we really want to do well.”
Russell: “It was definitely a handful [in FP1], but I think we managed to get on top of it. We knew we had potential in the car because I don’t think we made the most of our quick laps this morning. The car’s been feeling really great so far with these upgrades. It’s clearly close out there, but definitely surprised ourselves a little bit with that P2. If we manage to qualify here in second place a couple of tenths ahead of everyone else, I’m feeling good. I’m just excited to be back in this position. It’s been a little while and this is what excites me about Formula 1 – going out there fighting for poles, hopefully fighting for a win tomorrow.”
Leclerc: “Yeah, but for some reason [on] the soft [tyre] Mercedes really gained something that we didn’t quite have in our car. On the medium we were looking good, on the soft for some reason we didn’t have the pace to challenge for P1. The lap was a little bit scrappy but it’s not like I did anything weird, it just… yeah, the feeling wasn’t great. But it happens, and obviously with very limited running it happens even more so. We still have a quali tomorrow to recover, and P3 is not that bad for the Sprint Qualifying. Now we’ll focus on tomorrow and try to recover some positions. Max is also looking very quick for now. We don’t quite have the idea of who is going to be fast in race pace, so for now [there are] quite a lot of question marks. I don’t have the answer to that question, but I hope that we can win the Sprint race at least – that would be a good sign for Sunday.”
Norris: “Not very good – I’m P4. Not a great day, I’ve been struggling the whole day honestly with the balance and the set-up. In a way [I’m] happy with P4 because I feel like it could have been a lot worse, but my lap was shocking. So yeah, not a terrible day – it could have been worse, could have been better, but I’ll take it. It’s not a new package, it’s pretty much the same. No, not really. I hope to go forward, that’s my plan, but on pace I think we are where we deserve to be today, so my plan is to go forward but I have no idea how much we can.”
Hamilton: “That was a real shame today as I got unlucky with a yellow flag. I was four tenths up on my lap and looking good for P1, but it is what it is. The good thing is that we seem to have made a step forward with the car. The update we have brought here was working well and I am really grateful to everyone back at the factory for their hard work. The last few races haven’t been straightforward, but everyone has done a great job to bring this upgrade. We also did some strong work after FP1 to improve the car for Sprint Qualifying. Sprint weekends add an extra level of jeopardy with a second parc fermé, but as soon as we took to the track, I knew we had made some good choices. Despite our disappointment today, we have another go at it tomorrow and we will be giving it our best.”
Perez: “Very frustrating.Especially from SQ1 to SQ2, we didn’t have any progression; if anything we took a step back with the tyre, so that made things a lot trickier unfortunately, but it is what it is in the end. Hopefully we’re able to learn quite a bit as we did today with the car, and make sure in qualifying we’re able to put it all together. I think we’re struggling a little bit with the ride issues in high speed, something we will have a look at. Our long run pace looked very promising this morning, so I think we’ve got some work to do. For the rest of the weekend, the main target is to be strong in the race.”
Piastri: “Most of the lap was good. I made a few mistakes in the last sector, and obviously second to last corner I just tried to go a bit too fast and that’s the result. A shame, but if there’s one good thing about Sprint weekends it’s that we have another shot tomorrow. It feels okay, maybe not quite as strong as what it has in the last few races. But I don’t think that’s because we’re weaker, I think the others seem a little bit stronger maybe. Let’s see, I’m sure we’re still well and truly in the fight. Lando can definitely still go out and get pole for the Sprint, so it’s certainly not a case of we’re miles behind but it’s maybe a little bit more difficult for us than a few of the other weekends. We’ll see. It’s going to be tough, definitely, to get to the points from where we are, but we’ll try. We’ll see what we can do.”
The loss of Perez and Piastri along with Aston Martin allowed for a double SQ3 for Haas. Even though Nico Hulkenberg was behind the pack, he managed to eke out his best lap when it mattered. He still thinks that they need to fully understand the update despite the result.
Teammate Kevin Magnussen did not run the updates and was still inside the Top 10 and ahead of their immediate rivals like Visa Cash App RB’s Yuki Tsunoda. The Japanese found himself in ninth with teammate Liam Lawson also showing good pace until track limits caught him out.
The Aston Martin pair of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll too lost their laps due to track limits, where the Spaniard indicated of a gamble with the set-up. Williams’ Alexander Albon’s spin in SQ1 was costly to knock him out, but teammate Franco Colapinto made it through SQ3.
The Argentine lamented his own spin in SQ3 to be only 10th. Alpine’s Pierre Gasly gained from track limits of others to be 12th with the updates, as Esteban Ocon was out in SQ1 along with Kick Sauber pair of Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu.
Hulkenberg: “I’ll have to let that sink in for a bit. It was a very tricky qualifying as it was really up and down. In SQ1 I didn’t feel very good in the car, and I think we were lucky to make it through, so I didn’t expect that. We got lucky, and in SQ2 it got better, and it got better again in SQ3 on the soft tyres. We still need to look into the update as it currently feels tricky to drive with the wind and everything, but we now have a lot more data to look at.”
Tsunoda: “It was tricky today, but we managed to get into SQ3, which is good. There’s still a gap from Haas and Williams and it seems they have quite a lot of pace. We have to review what we could have done better today and probably improve our car, to try and get into Q3 tomorrow afternoon. Starting P9 we’ll do as much as we can to try and score points in the Sprint.”
Albon: “It was my mistake today; I should’ve been able to avoid that kerb, however we went for a bit of a stiffer car in Sprint Qualifying compared to FP1, so I just found it a bit too stiff from one session to the next. The car would’ve got us into SQ2 so I don’t think we need to make too many changes, it’s more about the tyres which are flat-spotted and can’t be used for the race tomorrow. We’ll have to see what we can do with the race run now as it feels slightly compromised.”
Alonso: “We wanted to experiment a little with the car today and made some setup changes ahead of Sprint Qualifying. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to make it through to SQ3 and we also had some deleted laps due to track limits at the end. We will evaluate these changes and the new package tonight and see what we can do tomorrow. The top eight positions score tomorrow, so it will be very difficult to fight for points, but we’ll see what we can learn.”
Gasly: “We did a reasonable job today as we prepare for the Sprint weekend in Austin. It’s the first time with our new package with some upgrades on the car. At this stage, it’s important that we continue to keep understanding the car, continue gathering valuable data and really push development, which will also benefit us for next season. It is going to be a challenge to score points from starting in the middle of the pack but we will always give it our best as you never know what can happen in racing.”
Bottas: “Qualifying was quite difficult today, with the wind picking up and affecting my consistency. The end result doesn’t look different from recent rounds, but the feel in the car is improved: the upgrades we brought to this race have put us in a better position and we are closer to the competition. We still need to find more stability, so the plan is to fine-tune the setup after tomorrow’s sprint, before qualifying for Sunday, with the goal of doing something more tomorrow and putting us in a better position for the race.”
Here’s F1 how F1 US GP sprint qualifying panned out
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