Qualifying Highlights | 2021 United States Grand Prix

Now, Sebastian Vettel did not like that. What a ****! I mean, seriously, what a ****! Only 18th fastest for Kimi. He's knocked out in Q1 once again. Next to cross the line, Charles Leclerc. Told you he had pace. He's gone fastest overall by two tenths to Max Verstappen. Don't discount Leclerc out of the final shake-up here. Latifi goes out of the bottom five, but only just. Esteban Ocon might be able to replace Latifi and leapfrog the Williams. One more corner to go. Has he got pace to get himself out of the bottom five? Crosses the line, he does. Pushes Latifi back down into that bottom five. He's 13th. Next to cross the line, Fernando Alonso. Pushes Lance Stroll down into the bottom five. Giovinazzi very much at risk. Sebastian Vettel will be next to cross the line. Nikita Mazepin needs to get a time on the board. And Mick Schumacher's trying hard too. Vettel goes tenth fastest. Next we look to see Mazepin crossing the line. Stays slowest of all the 20 drivers. Mick Schumacher next to cross the line. Can he go any faster? No, he can't. Only 19th fastest for Mick Schumacher. And looking at Lance Stroll, no, he's out of qualifying, along with Latifi Raikkonen, Schumacher and Mazepin. Antonio Giovinazzi just rueing a little mistake that he made at the top of the hill. Coming down, he was out for a spin, but he's through into the second part of qualifying. Ricciardo round the final corner he comes now. For the first time on the board for him in this session, only ninth fastest. Pushes Yuki Tsunoda down into 11th. Tsunoda was in Q3 in Turkey for the first time in eight races. He's got to go faster now. Giovinazzi is out, only 12th fastest for him. Fernando Alonso, he's going to go to the back of the grid, but he'd like to get into the top ten if he can. And he will cross the line now, only 13th fastest, with his teammate Esteban Ocon tenth. Tsunoda has the chance then to knock the other Alpine out of Q3, and that looked nice. Coming round, turn 19. One more corner to go, sunk very much in the driver's eyes as they turn left-handed and crosses the line, goes ahead of Esteban Ocon. And for the second race running so far, Yuki Tsunoda is into Q3. But can Sebastian Vettel or George Russell do something about that? Big sigh of relief for Ricciardo with the drivers out there on the red marked soft tyres. He's still up in P9, really, his main concern behind him now, as you point out, is Sebastian Vettel. But it looks like Ricciardo should get through to the shootout, and does! Sebastian Vettel, 12th fastest, two-time former pole sitter here at the Circuit of the Americas, only 12th on the grid. Not the best day for Aston Martin. We're strolling the bottom five in Q1, and George Russell goes 13th fastest. Both him and Sebastian Vettel will be going to the back of the grid with Fernando Alonso. And Russell's 35.73 is going to be deleted. He drops down to 15th with no time. And now he'll just swing through here. Line of least resistance. Cascade down that hill one more time into 19. Throw the nose in. He's got plenty of space in hand there on track limits. Turn in late for the final corner. Front drifting a little bit wide again. Stay right. You're quickly towards the line. A 33.5 on the soft. That is not especially quick. His teammate Valtteri Bottas was about a tenth away and crosses the line through the second sector. Crosses the line at nearly a tenth of a second up. Bottas was on pole last time he came here to Austin. Has provisional pole at the moment. Lando Norris goes third fastest as he crosses the line. As Carlos Sainz goes third fastest. And he's still got time to do something about it. Verstappen in the final sector. Ricciardo is ahead of Norris. Gasly ahead of Tsunoda. Leclerc behind his teammate goes fourth fastest. Verstappen crosses the line and by nearly three-tenths of a second. Verstappen. You can hear the cheers. And certainly from the big Red Bull grandstand at the top of Turn 1. Goes on provisional pole. But guess what? His teammate Sergio Perez gets an even bigger round of applause to snatch provisional pole from Max by nearly two-hundredths of a second. That wasn't in the playbook, surely? Great, great lap. Perez has been on it since the get-go here, hasn't he? He's in the groove. He's dialed in. And how about that? Perez, the man on provisional pole, starting his final lap right now. Very good middle sector. For Lewis Hamilton. Oh, and then the car still moving around a little bit there. He takes a slightly wider line through 16, 17 and 18 that's coming up, does Lewis Hamilton. Then Max Verstappen. Max already cuts this fine, this corner. Maybe nips the car up a little bit. But Hamilton then has found good time in the middle sector. Bottas will cross the line now. Stays third fastest. Lewis Hamilton to cross the line to try and get provisional pole back again. And he does so by six-one-hundredths of a second. Hamilton gets the cheers from the crowd now. He's on provisional pole. But Verstappen has absolutely aced the first sector. This is not over yet. And Perez, only a few hundredths off his teammates as he currently is on the front row. Norris goes sixth fastest. And rain in the pit lane we're hearing. Just gentle rain in the beginning of it in the pit lane. So it should be okay to finish the lap in the dry unless the wind blows those clouds over to where we are now. Another good middle sector for Verstappen. He's right on the pace. Yeah, a little bit wide though through 14 there. But let's see what he's got. Let's see if he gets any rain on his visor through these last few corners. This is the tighter line he takes. This is going to be so close. Leclerc goes ahead of his teammate, Carlos Sainz. Ricciardo is out-qualified. Lando Norris, Gasly ahead of Tsunoda who's tenth. Now Verstappen has seven poles in the last ten races. Verstappen's back on provisional pole here in Austin. We're into the 1.32s for Red Bull. Can Perez get pole? Oh, he can't get pole. It was there for him. But Verstappen has snatched that pole position out of Sergio Perez's hands. And Red Bull, who had a front row lockout, now a one and three because the two championship protagonists, Verstappen and Hamilton, for the seventh time this season lock out the front row between them. And that is why they are the championship protagonists. When they need to, they can pull out something a bit special, find that quarter of a second and not throw it off the road. That was sensational driving all round.