United States GP – Sprint pole for Verstappen, second and third row for Ferrari drivers. Formula 1 has returned after a three-week break.

Formula 1 has returned after a three-week break, and the first qualifying session of the weekend was already eventful. Although it only applied to tomorrow evening’s Sprint race, there were plenty of twists and turns.

Starting with Q1, during the final minutes Oscar Piastri tried to improve his time but exceeded track limits, forcing race control to delete his lap time, which led to his elimination. In addition to the Australian, another notable elimination was that of Thailand’s Alexander Albon, who was knocked out by his teammate Franco Colapinto. Despite never having driven on the Texas track, Colapinto showed great form behind the wheel of the British car.

Along with Albon and Piastri, Esteban Ocon, Valtteri Bottas, and Guanyu Zhou were also eliminated at the end of Q1.

Moving on to Q2, the remaining fifteen drivers returned to the track to battle again for a spot in the top ten for the final part of the session. However, the surprises didn’t end there. At the end of the ten-minute session, another big name was forced to end his qualifying early—Sergio Perez. The Mexican driver, due to several mistakes, was unable to improve enough to stay in the top ten and will start tomorrow from eleventh place. Along with the Red Bull driver, Pierre Gasly, Lance Stroll, Fernando Alonso, and newcomer Liam Lawson also failed to make it to Q3.

The remaining ten drivers then fought tooth and nail for pole position. Despite the two Mercedes hitting the track much earlier than everyone else, George Russell put in a spectacular timed lap that kept him in pole position for most of the session. His teammate Lewis Hamilton was less fortunate, as he encountered a yellow flag in the second sector during his attempt, then made an error that forced him to abort the lap. Hamilton didn’t even try again since his car was only fueled for a single attempt.

Just seconds before the checkered flag, pole position was snatched by three-time world champion Max Verstappen, who set a time of 1:32.833, edging out Russell by just 12 thousandths. Despite this, Russell will start from second place. Charles Leclerc secured third in the Sprint Qualifying, clocking a 1:33.059 with his SF-24, despite an error in the snake section. Below is the complete ranking.

Max Verstappen pipped George Russell to claim pole position f