By Alan Baldwin
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) -Red Bull's Max Verstappen beat McLaren's title contenders Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri with a final flying lap to take pole position for the U.S. Grand Prix sprint race on Friday.
The four-times world champion went round the Circuit of the Americas with a best effort of one minute 32.143 seconds after Norris, who set the pace in the first two phases and also the weekend's sole practice session, had put his car on provisional pole.
Norris was 0.071 slower than
his Dutch rival, who has beaten both McLaren drivers in the last three regular grands prix but remains 63 points behind championship leader Piastri.
With eight points on offer to the winner of Saturday's 100km race, he and Norris -- 22 points behind Piastri -- both have a good chance to reduce the gap to the Australian who was three tenths slower than his teammate.
"It worked out well, but I still expect it to be a tough battle tomorrow in the sprint but that’s I think exactly what we want to see," said Verstappen, who has been the king of the sprints with 12 wins and now 10 poles since the format was first introduced in 2021.
"The wind was coming up and down, very gusty. The track is very bumpy as well, so the cars can easily step out on you in the high speed. In a qualifying like that, you have to leave a few margins here and there, but for us this has been a very good day."
McLaren have already won the constructors' championship for the second year in a row and are chasing the team's first drivers' title since seven-times champion Lewis Hamilton opened his account in 2008.
Norris started the main race on pole position last year and will hope to make a clean and quick getaway without tangling with either Verstappen or Piastri, as he did in the previous race in Singapore.
"Of course, I would've loved to have been on pole but it's not a surprise for us to be just a bit slower than the Red Bull, but still pretty happy," the Briton told reporters.
"I don't know how much I was off by but a little couple of things here and there I could've improved on, and just caught a few bumps a little bit wrong, I'd say, but that's just the difficulty of this track."
Piastri said he could have done better.
"I think a pretty scruffy lap to be honest. I just didn't really get it together. I feel a bit fortunate to be third, but I think the pace in the car is good," added the Australian.
Sauber's Nico Hulkenberg was an impressive fourth fastest with George Russell, winner in Singapore, fifth for Mercedes and Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso sixth.
Williams had Carlos Sainz qualifying seventh while Hamilton will start only eighth for Ferrari, but ahead of teammate Charles Leclerc in 10th. Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli lines up 11th.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
