Verstappen edges Leclerc in sprint shootout reversal from USGP qualifying

Max Verstappen will start the United States Grand Prix sprint from P1 after edging out Charles Leclerc for the top spot.

Leclerc, who nabbed pole during Friday qualifying for Sunday’s grand prix, was just 0.055s short of doing the qualifying double.

Verstappen’s performance wasn’t perfect, with a spin through the dirt exiting Turn 9 almost putting him into the barriers during SQ2, but a clean single lap in SQ3 was enough to see off the competition.

“I think we were quite competitive,” he said. “I think the last lap wasn’t particularly great, but still on pole, so I think the car is working quite well.”

Drivers set just one lap in SQ3 rather than being fueled for the two that have sometimes been seen in past sprint shootouts, with the soft tire good for only one flying lap at the Circuit of The Americas. It kept the result tight, with Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris set to share the second row on the grid but with all four top drivers, representing four different teams, spread over 0.101s.

Oscar Piastri will start fifth ahead of Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez.

George Russell qualified eighth but is under a penalty cloud after appearing to impede Leclerc during SQ1 between Turns 19 and 20.

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Alex Albon was managed to make the top 10, qualifying ninth, and Pierre Gasly ended up 10th.

Daniel Ricciardo rose to 11th in the intermediate sprint qualifying segment, missing out on a top-10 berth by just 0.031s. The Australian was more than 0.1s quicker than Fernando Alonso, whose 12th place was a five-spot improvement on his Friday qualifying result.

Esteban Ocon will start 13th ahead of Lance Stroll, for whom a better time went begging via a big lock-up into Turn 12, and Zhou Guanyu.

SQ1 was a super-tight session, with the knockout time just 0.74s slower than the leader and the top 19 drivers split by only 0.948s.

Haas teammates Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen were knocked out 16th and 17th ahead of Valtteri Bottas and a frustrated Yuki Tsunoda, while Logan Sargeant will again start at the back of the grid.

The all-in first segment was prone to traffic bottlenecks as drivers tried to manage their out-laps without exceeding the maximum time set down by race direction to try to avoid dangerous gamesmanship.

Russell, Albon, Hulkenberg, Magnussen, Gasly, Piastri, Bottas, Tsunoda, Perez, Stroll, Zhou, Ricciardo and Norris -- 13 of 20 drivers -- will all be investigated for traveling too slowly on their preparation and cool-down laps.