McLaren’s Lando Norris snatched pole position for the 2024 US Grand Prix.
Hours after his title deficit was extended to 54 points following Max Verstappen’s victory in the sprint, Norris left it late in Qualifying to take pole with his first Q3 lap after Mercedes’ George Russell ruined the final fliers.
Lewis Hamilton meanwhile suffered a shock Q1 exit in 19th position as Qualifying produced an exciting grid for the race.
Q1
Williams’ Alex Albon was first out on track as half of the grid opted to run early but he aborted his first flier, which left Norris setting the benchmark pace with 1m 34.029 amongst early runners.
Verstappen shortly afterwards posted 1m 33.690 to go top but Gasly in the 10th minute produced 1m 33.550 to put his Alpine top of the timesheet.
Russell, Hamilton and Guanyu Zhou found themselves sat in the bottom five with six minutes left along with Charles Leclerc and Yuki Tsunoda, with the latter pair having had their times deleted after they exceeded track limits.
Leclerc however left it until five minutes left of the segment to go top with 1m 33.241 which dropped Valtteri Bottas into the bottom five.
At the checkered flag, Hamilton became a shock casualty as he only finished 19th and only ahead of Zhou, whose Sauber teammate – Valtteri Bottas qualified 18th on the grid.
Williams’ Albon and Franco Colapinto were eliminated in 16th and 17th positions respectively.
Verstappen topped the segment with 1m 33.046 ahead of Leclerc and RB’s Liam Lawson.
Q2
Verstappen was first on track and set 1m 33.052 on used soft tyres as the benchmark time – just 0.006 seconds shy of his best Q1 time, whilst RB opted to not run Lawson any further in the session other than as slipstream tow for Tsunoda.
Norris set 1m 32.851 in the seventh minute on new soft tyres as the quickest lap time, whilst the elimination zone compromised of; Esteban Ocon, Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll, Leclerc and Lawson.
Once the checkered flag fell, Tsunoda qualified 11th ahead of Nico Hulkenberg by 0.038s, whilst Ocon and Stroll will share the seventh row in 13th and 14th positions respectively.
Q3
Haas’ Kevin Magnussen and Mercedes’ George Russell were first out on track and the former posted 1m 33.481 as the initial benchmark time.
Norris however quickly beat their times with 1m 32.330 in the fifth minute which put him on provisional pole, as Verstappen fell 0.031s shy in second with Carlos Sainz, Leclerc and Oscar Piastri in the top five.
Russell sat sixth ahead of Gasly, Magnussen and Perez – whose lap time was deleted – whilst Alonso opted to run in the gap, which saw the Spaniard go eighth in the order ahead of Magnussen and Perez’s final runs.
At the checkered flag, Norris secured pole position after Russell crashed at Turn 19 to ruin the final flying laps.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time |
| 1 | Lando Norris | McLaren | 1m 32.330 |
| 2 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | + 0.031 |
| 3 | Carlos Sainz | Ferrari | + 0.322 |
| 4 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | + 0.410 |
| 5 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren | + 0.620 |
| 6 | George Russell | Mercedes | + 0.644 |
| 7 | Pierre Gasly | Alpine | + 0.688 |
| 8 | Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin | + 0.979 |
| 9 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas | + 1.151 |
| 10 | Sergio Perez | Red Bull | No Time |
| 11 | Yuki Tsunoda | RB | 1m 33.506 |
| 12 | Nico Hulkenberg | Haas | + 0.038 |
| 13 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine | + 0.091 |
| 14 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | + 0.253 |
| 15* | Liam Lawson | RB | No Time |
| 16 | Alex Albon | Williams | 1m 34.051 |
| 17 | Franco Colapinto | Williams | + 0.011 |
| 18 | Valtteri Bottas | Sauber | + 0.101 |
| 19 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | + 0.103 |
| 20 | Guanyu Zhou | Sauber | + 0.177 |
*Liam Lawson will start from the back of the grid due to a power unit change.
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