The Saturday competition sessions are coming to an end here at the Circuit of the Americas. The United States Grand Prix qualifying sessions started to take place during a hot Saturday afternoon in Austin to sort the starting grid.

The hopes were up for Sergio Pérez, as he had been quickest during FP2 and FP3 earlier in the day.

Q1

Green light hit and Mick Schumacher and Lance Stroll were the first drivers out on track, with the latter questioning his team on the urgency to hit the track. His team responded that it seemed everyone was going out early so they just wanted to be ahead of the rest of the pack.

And the Aston Martin team were right, soon after the rest of the drivers followed and hit the track.

Schumacher was the first one to set a flying lap time, quickly followed by Stroll and then Leclerc, but the three of them were quickly topped by Verstappen who positioned himself in P1.

Stroll was the first one this afternoon who got time deleted for exceeding track limits, pushing him into the elimination zone. With 10 minutes left in the session, VER, PER and BOT were the top 3 but the final result ended differently.

Leclerc led the pack, followed by Verstappen, Pérez, Ricciardo and Norris. The drivers who didn’t make the cut for Q2 were Stroll, Latifi, Räikkonen, Schumacher and Mazepin.

Q2

The second qualifying sessions tarted with a couple more clouds over the circuit but still a hot temperature.

Both Mercedes drivers were the first ones out on track, but everyone else quickly followed the former silver arrows.

Even though he is starting tomorrow’s race from the back of the grid, George Russell, Mr. Saturday, was the one to set a lap time in this session.

Pérez was the first driver during this session to get his lap time deleted due to exceeding track limits. With 3 minutes left in Q2, the Mexican was in the elimination zone but quickly got a fast lap in and made it to P7, pushing Alonso out of the top 10 and into the elimination zone.

Ricciardo went for a hot lap to try and get out of elimination zone, where he was P12, and he managed to get into top 10, making it possible for him to get a shot in Q3.

At the end of the session Verstappen, Hamilton and Norris made up top 3, followed by Leclerc and Bottas to complete top 5. The drivers that ended up getting eliminated were Ocon, Vettel (who is starting from the back alongside Alonso and Russell), Giovinazzi, Alonso and Russell.

Q3

The wind picked up around Circuit of the Americas for the last qualifying session, with a bit of rain threatening to hit during the last few minutes.

Again, Hamilton was first driver out, followed by teammate Bottas. Yuki Tsunoda had reached Q3 once again, making it his second weekend in a row to get all the way into this session.

The Brit Mercedes driver was the first one to set a flying lap time but was quickly topped by his Finnish teammate (who is getting a 5-place grid penalty tomorrow).

Norris set a time after but wasn’t faster than the arrows so stayed P3. That order di not last long, and by nearly 3 tenths of a second, Max Verstappen got P1 but lasted only seconds in the position before teammate Pérez took the provisional pole from him by being just 0.019s faster.

This position would have been the Mexican first pole position of his career, but in the end, he did not manage to get it.

A dark cloud threatened to deliver a few drops of water, but we managed to get thorugh the entire session with a dry track.

After all drivers got another go at a flying lap Verstappen managed to get pole position by setting a time of 1:32.910. He was followed by Hamilton and Pérez completing top 3. The drivers that followed were Bottas, Leclerc, Sainz, Ricciardo, Norris, Gasly and Tsunoda completing top 10, but everyone from LEC to GAS are moving up one spot due to Bottas getting a grid penalty for Sunday’s race.

MAX: "It was exciting out there! P1 and P3 for the team is a very strong performance. I hope to have a good start tomorrow for the best possible result"#USGP 🇺🇸 #F1 pic.twitter.com/tNcvJtkzEa

— Formula 1 (@F1) October 23, 2021