Austin, October 18 (IANS). Max Verstappen secured pole position for the sprint race of the United States Grand Prix. The Dutch driver overtook both McLaren cars in the final moments of sprint qualifying with a spectacular lap. Lando Norris maintained his pace throughout the session. The British driver set the fastest time in both SQ1 and SQ2. It looked like he would keep the same lead in SQ3 as well, but in the end Verstappen overtook everyone and set a blistering time of 1 minute 32.143 seconds to be 0.071 seconds ahead of Norris. The other McLaren driver, Oscar Piastri, also performed brilliantly. Piastri finished third, just three tenths of a second behind Verstappen. Nico Hulkenberg turned heads with his kicking Sauber car and finished fourth. Apart from this, Mercedes’ George Russell finished fifth, while Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso finished sixth. Williams’ Carlos Sainz bounced back from limited running in FP1 to finish seventh on the grid, while teammate Alex Albon finished ninth. Lewis Hamilton finished eighth among them. The season was a bit of a challenge for Ferrari as his teammate Charles Leclerc finished 10th. Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli missed out on a place in SQ3 by a very small margin. He trailed by just 0.006 seconds. Many drivers did not reach the line in time to complete their final laps in these exciting finals to SQ1. This included Haas’ Olly Biermann (P16), Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda (P18), Esteban Ocon of the other Haas car (P19) and Kick Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoletto (P20). In addition, Alpine’s Franco Colapinto also crashed out in the first segment of sprint qualifying, ending the session in P17. –IANS RSG Share this story Tags
Formula 1: Verstappen wins US Grand Prix sprint pole
