Max Verstappen takes sprint race pole in US Grand Prix to turn up heat on Lando Norris
Norris could only qualify a disappointing fourth for the Saturday sprint race in Austin
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Lando Norris risks losing ground to Max Verstappen in his bid to be crowned world champion after seeing his rival take pole position for Saturday’s sprint race in the United States.
Norris, who trails Verstappen by 52 points heading into the concluding six rounds of the campaign, will line up three places behind Verstappen for the 19-lap dash after he qualified a disappointing fourth at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas.
Verstappen has not won since the Spanish Grand Prix, nearly four months ago, but he pulled out an impressive lap in the closing seconds to beat Mercedes’ George Russell to top spot by just 0.012 seconds.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc will line up from third, one place ahead of Norris, with Lewis Hamilton seventh.
Norris knows he can ill-afford to allow Verstappen to increase his title lead, but the British driver will have his work cut out to prevent the Red Bull man doing just that after he finished 0.250secs adrift.
The top eight are awarded points in the sprint race which takes place ahead of a second qualifying session to determine the starting order for Sunday’s main event.
“The whole day the car has been working well,” said Verstappen. “I’m happy to be first, it’s been a while, so I am happy with today.
“We will do the best we can in the sprint, but we also know the most points are available on Sunday, so that’s where we really want to do well.”
To land his first title, Norris will need to rely on help from Oscar Piastri in the other McLaren, but the Australian was a surprise faller at the first hurdle here and will start only 16th.
Piastri thought he had done enough to haul his McLaren into Q2, only to see his best effort chalked off for exceeding track limits after he ran wide at the penultimate corner.
Hamilton has won a record five times on Texas soil and at one stage looked in contention to take pole, but he was frustrated by Mercedes for sending him out early in the Q3 and then made a mistake on his sole effort. He qualified half-a-second behind Russell.
“Come on, guys, that was not good,” complained the seven-time world champion over the radio.
Alex Albon, in his 100th Grand Prix, failed to progress from the opening phase following a high-speed spin as he was about to complete his speediest lap. He will start 18th.
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