Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton claimed pole in Formula 1 US Grand Prix beating the Ferrari duo of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen as the Top 3 were separated by just the 0.070s.
Q1:
The first part in qualifying went to Hamilton as he led Mercedes’ teammate Bottas with Vettel ending up third. A trouble-free session saw Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen hit the sausage kerb on the exit of Turn 15 which broke his right rear suspension.
Elsewhere, Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly’s initial time was disallowed due to track limits in Turn 19 but the Frenchman still managed to set the seventh best time to end as the best of the rest. The biggest one to lose out in the pack was McLaren’s Fernando Alonso.
Alonso (1m35.294s) was bumped out after a late improvement from Toro Rosso’s Brendon Hartley. Williams’ Sergey Sirotkin (1m35.362s) did well to be 17th which was enough to beat teammate Lance Stroll (1m35.480s).
Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson (1m35.536s) could only manage 19th with McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne (1m35.735s) rounding out the 20 runners.
Q2:
The second part had Ferrari’s Raikkonen topping the session as the Finn opted to run on the ultrasoft tyre as opposed to the Mercedes drivers, Vettel and Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo. It was Vettel in second and Hamilton third.
However, the British driver did two flying laps on the compound he will start on in the Sunday’s race which could pose a challenge with the strategy. After Verstappen’s sausage kerb hit in Q1, the Dutchman was forced out of qualifying.
Joining him was Renault’s Carlos Sainz (1m34.556s) in 11th who missed a Q3 spot by 0.002s from teammate Nico Hulkenberg. Haas’ Kevin Magnussen (1m34.732s) in 12th was the only other driver to set a time in Q2.
Both Gasly and Hartley did venture out in the session but chose not to set a lap time as they are already to start from the back of the grid due to power unit penalty.
Q3:
It was provisional pole for Hamilton with a 1m32.567s lap time after his first run with Vettel slotting in second – the duo only 0.088s apart. Bottas was third from Raikkonen with Ricciardo in fifth from Grosjean as the best of the rest.
It was close in the end with Raikkonen (1m32.307s) beating Hamilton’s time initially to take pole but Hamilton fought back with a 1m32.237s to take his ninth pole of the 2018 season with Vettel (1m32.298s) then only finishing 0.061s behind.
The German radioed that he snapped in Turn 8 where he lost time in otherwise a perfect lap. He will start from fifth with the three-place penalty he incurred for failing to slow down sufficiently under red flag condition in FP1.
Raikkonen was third then as the Top 3 were separated by just 0.070s. The Finn though will start from the front-row with Ricciardo (1m33.494s) ending up fifth from Racing Point Force India’s Esteban Ocon (1m34.145s) as the best of the rest.
Hulkenberg (1m34.215s) was seventh with Haas’ Romain Grosjean (1m34.250s) in eighth followed by Sauber’s Charles Leclerc (1m34.420s) and Racing Point Force India’s Sergio Perez (1m34.594s).
