Paul Jeffrey
Premium
Mercedes AMG driver Lewis Hamilton romped to Pole Position for tomorrow's United States Grand Prix with a fine lap right at the end of qualifying, placing the Briton in prime position to close the 33 point deficit to Nico Rosberg in the sister Mercedes car.
Rosberg couldn't quite close the final two tenths of a second during Q3, despite briefly holding provisional pole position courtesy of track position during the two drivers final run in qualifying today. Faster in the final sector, and with Hamilton complaining of a less than optimum seventh gear, Rosberg could do little when faced with the blistering pace of the #44 AMG Mercedes.
Daniel Ricciardo secured third position for Red Bull Racing, with teammate and promising youngster Max Verstappen backing up his teammate as a buffer between the Red Bull drivers and Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel. Ricciardo is the only runner from the top four drivers to set his laptime on the Super Soft tyre, giving the likeable Australian driver options to try something different in Sunday's race.
Nico Hulkenberg put in a fine performance in his Force India, bringing the Silverstone based team a fourth row grid position, crucially ahead of championship rivials Williams who only managed to secure eighth and ninth positions for Valetteri Bottas and the soon to retire Filipe Massa. Rounding out the top ten was Toro Rosso junior Carlos Sainz Jr, who once again piled on the pressure for former Red Bull driver Danill Kvyat, languishing in thirteenth despite a recent boost to the struggling Russian as Toro Rosso confirm a contract has been signed to remain with the team in 2017.
Sadly for fans of the McLaren team, Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button failed to make the most of some reasonable pace displayed during the weekend, with Button failing to make it past the early stages and Alonso just failing to make the final top three shootout, ending the day nineteenth for Button and thirteenth for former double World Champion Fernando Alonso.
Full Provisional Qualifying results for the United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas:
1. Lewis Hamilton GBR Mercedes-Mercedes 1m 34.999s
2. Nico Rosberg GER Mercedes-Mercedes 1m 35.215s
3. Daniel Ricciardo AUS Red Bull-TAG Heuer 1m 35.509s
4. Max Verstappen NED Red Bull-TAG Heuer 1m 35.747s
5. Kimi Raikkonen FIN Ferrari-Ferrari 1m 36.131s
6. Sebastian Vettel GER Ferrari-Ferrari 1m 36.358s
7. Nico Hulkenberg GER Force India-Mercedes 1m 36.628s
8. Valtteri Bottas FIN Williams-Mercedes 1m 37.116s
9. Felipe Massa BRZ Williams-Mercedes 1m 37.269s
10. Carlos Sainz Jr ESP Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m 37.326s
11. Sergio Perez MEX Force India-Mercedes 1m 37.353s
12. Fernando Alonso ESP McLaren-Honda 1m 37.417s
13. Daniil Kvyat RUS Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m 37.480s
14. Esteban Gutierrez MEX Haas-Ferrari 1m 37.773s
15. Jolyon Palmer GBR Renault-Renault 1m 37.935s
16. Marcus Ericsson SWE Sauber-Ferrari 1m 39.356s
17. Romain Grosjean FRA Haas-Ferrari 1m 38.308s
18. Kevin Magnussen DEN Renault-Renault 1m 38.317s
19. Jenson Button GBR McLaren-Honda 1m 38.327s
20. Pascal Wehrlein GER MRT-Mercedes 1m 38.548s
21. Felipe Nasr BRZ Sauber-Ferrari 1m 38.583s
22. Esteban Ocon FRA MRT-Mercedes 1m 38.806s
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Do you think Lewis Hamilton can claw back some points in America? Will Red Bull make good on their long run pace and challenge the Mercedes cars? Let us know in the comments section below!
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