Norris full recovery in Texas, the Briton in the pole position of the US GP

Throughout the past two days McLaren have not looked like they have the speed of Red Bull this three days in Austin, and Lando Norris has already confirmed that in his words, but in tonight’s qualifying tests for the US GP – for tomorrow’s 19th race of the year Formula 1 – the Englishman managed to achieve a dazzling lap that gave him pole position.

This lap was the drivers’ first attempt at Q3, as a violent exit by George Russell at the end of the Texas qualifying test sent the Mercedes W15 into the barriers and plenty of power – fortunately without any consequences for the British driver – effectively putting the yellow flags end of process.

The accident happened on the last section of the track, which meant that all the other drivers missed the chance to improve their times. Thus, they stayed with those of the first attempt, and the pole position of Lando Norris was somewhat ingloriously sealed.

But she was not inglorious. On his first lap in Q3 Norris was extremely quick in the middle section of the track, but had a sharp shake of the McLaren MCL38’s tail in the penultimate corner which saw him by millimeters before taking him off the track.

It was at the same turn that Russell would lose the tail of the Mercedes W15 a little later, and he would go off the track at quite a high speed. At that point the sand trap is large, but the Briton still crashed violently into the barrier – before exiting his car completely unharmed.

By then, in his second attempt at Q3, Verstappen was almost 0.2″ faster than Norris in the first section of the track. But the process was halted before he completed the middle section – which was McLaren’s strength in Norris’ first lap in Q3.

Carlos Sainz was around 3 tenths (!) faster than his previous time in his second attempt before Russell’s accident, but still his 3rd place was an excellent result given that he was ahead of Charles Leclerc – as the Ferrari locked the second row of the boot.

On the third row will be Oscar Piastri and George Russell of McLaren and Mercedes respectively, while Lewis Hamilton was the big (negative) surprise of these tests: the seven-time champion was eliminated in Q1, after a driving error at turn 12 , and then had his time erased for exceeding the track limits.

That means Hamilton will normally start from 19th, but instead will likely prefer to start from the pits to be able to get in on the Mercedes W15, which he described as “nightmarish” in feel.

Pierre Gasly’s 7th place is an unexpected and highly encouraging result for Alpine, showing that the extensive upgrades he brought to this race have worked. Thus, the Frenchman left Fernando Alonso in the Aston Martn AMR24 in 8th place.

Kevin Magnussen was impressive with his entry into the top ten (also with the heavily upgraded Haas VF-24), while at the end of it was Sergio Perez because his first lap – which, thanks to Russell, was supposed to be the only one – was deleted. due to exceeding the limits of the track. The US GP will start tomorrow Sunday (20/10) at 22:00 (ANT1+, LIVE SPORT24).