2024 United States Grand Prix: Verstappen on Sprint Pole ahead of Russell

Max Verstappen took pole position in the 2024 United States Grand Prix Sprint Qualifying just +0.012s ahead of George Russell.

The drivers will take to track for the Sprint race on Saturday following an action packed Qualifying, which you can catch up on below.

SQ1

With a limited timeframe to get their lap times on the board, most of the drivers queued at the end of the pitlane to get as much time on track as possible.

Verstappen was the first driver to get onto track, going top of the timesheets before a particularly impressive lap from Kevin Magnussen displaced him. Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson also showed good pace on their first runs.

Sergio Pérez’s first lap time got deleted but the Mexican managed to get into SQ2 on his second attempt. It wasn’t the same story for Oscar Piastri though, who had a moment at Turn 19, exceeding track limits on his second attempt and being knocked out in sixteenth. 

Esteban Ocon joined Piastri in the bottom five, as did Alex Albon, who had a big moment on the exit of Turn 19 spinning his Williams to be out-qualified by Franco Colapinto. 

Lawson made it through to SQ2 in his first qualifying session of the season, while the session was topped by Charles Leclerc with a lap time of 1:33.647 ahead of Lewis Hamilton by +0.193s.

SQ2

SQ2 saw Pérez’s difficult start to the weekend get even worse as he was knocked out with a lap time that was almost a second slower than his teammate.

Pierre Gasly will start the Sprint in twelfth, while Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso were also knocked out in SQ2 and look unlikely to score their first point in a Sprint format this season. Alonso’s lap time was deleted when he exceeded track limits at Turn 19 as Piastri did the session before.

Lawson had put himself twelfth, with a lap that he described as “scruffy” on the radio but it got even worse for the RB driver with his time being deleted, meaning he’ll start the Sprint down in fifteenth.

Both MoneyGram Haas F1 Team cars got through to SQ3, with Magnussen flying high in seventh. Colapino almost made it through, as did Tsunoda in the RB.

Carlos Sainz Jr. topped the session by a small margin ahead of Verstappen and Hamilton.

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool/Getty Images

SQ3

The two Mercedes cars were the first out on track at the Circuit of Americas in SQ3. While Russell put in a great lap, Hamilton’s was poor and by the end of the session the seven time world champion fell down to seventh. 

Russell’s great effort means he’ll start on the front row, behind Verstappen who returns to the front of the pack. Leclerc had a wobble in sector one but managed to put his SF24 on the second row, alongside Lando Norris, who will be disappointed to be behind Verstappen. 

Sainz ended up fifth, but the performance of the day came from Nico Húlkenberg, who will start sixth, with his teammate in eighth. Tsunoda will start ninth while Colapinto ended an impressive session with a tricky SQ3, where he spun at Turn 12 meaning he’ll start tenth for Saturday’s Sprint.