By Alan Baldwin
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) -Red Bull's Max Verstappen beat McLaren's Lando Norris to pole position for the U.S. Grand Prix on Saturday as Formula One championship leader Oscar Piastri qualified only sixth.
Australian Piastri is 22 points clear of teammate Norris, and 55 ahead of Verstappen, ahead of Sunday's race at the Circuit of the Americas but risks having his margin slashed.
Verstappen's bid for a fifth successive title, once dismissed as impossible, is gaining strength after he also
won the Saturday sprint race from pole position while both McLarens crashed out.
Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, last year's winner in Austin, qualified third fastest and shares the second row with Mercedes' George Russell, winner of the previous round in Singapore.
Verstappen needed only one flying lap to secure his seventh pole of the season, the Dutch driver failing to make it around in time for a second attempt in the final phase, but he was still nearly three tenths faster than Norris.
"Unfortunately I couldn’t do my final run. It was a bit messy with the out-laps, but luckily, we didn’t need it," said the Dutch driver.
Norris, who took pole last year, said he could not have done better.
"We were pushing and I'm still happy with P2. It could have been worse, But there was no chance we could have got on pole today," said the Briton.
"I look forward to hopefully having a good race with Max. We have had some good ones in the past so looking forward to it again."
Ferrari's seven times world champion Lewis Hamilton qualified fifth and shares the third row with Piastri, while Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli lines up seventh and Haas's Oliver Bearman eighth.
Carlos Sainz was ninth fastest for Williams and Fernando Alonso completed the top 10 for Aston Martin.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Toby Davis)
