Max Verstappen stole the spotlight under Austin’s late-afternoon glare, hustling his Red Bull to Sprint Qualifying pole with a ruthless final-sector punch that turned a McLaren 1-2 into a familiar sight: the No. 1 car back on top.
On a soft-tyre, eight‑minute SQ3 dash that gave everyone one shot and no second chances, Verstappen nailed a 1:32.143 to edge Lando Norris by 0.071s. Oscar Piastri couldn’t quite live with that pace and settled into third, almost four tenths off, as the title fight’s tone shifted again heading into Saturday’s sprint.
COTA’s Turn 1 still knows how to spoil a lap, and George Russell found that out early with a squirrelly moment. Even so, he banked a banker. Nico Hülkenberg briefly grabbed the headlines with purple in Sector 1 and provisional pole for Sauber, but once the McLarens rolled, the real fight started. Norris dropped a 1:32.214 that looked enough—until Verstappen’s final sector turned the timing screens Red Bull blue.
Behind the front two, Piastri’s lap never quite stitched together, while Hülkenberg kept his name up in lights with a tidy fourth. Russell slotted into fifth, ahead of Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin. Carlos Sainz will line up seventh for Williams alongside Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton in eighth, with Alex Albon ninth and Charles Leclerc 10th after a subdued finish for the Scuderia.
SQ3 top 10: Verstappen, Norris, Piastri, Hülkenberg, Russell, Alonso, Sainz, Hamilton, Albon, Leclerc.
This was a qualifying hour that built nicely through the gears. On the mandatory mediums in SQ2, Norris had the upper hand at 1:33.033, with Verstappen a tenth back and Piastri in tow. The margins were tight behind them, and the final scrimmage for the top 10 turned oddly tense.
Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli was the hard-luck story—he missed the SQ3 cut by six thousandths to Hamilton. Isack Hadjar’s promising first segment faded to P12, Pierre Gasly’s Alpine was P13, and Lance Stroll didn’t find a lap on his second run. As for Liam Lawson, he looked like he’d escaped the drop before a track-limits strike at Turn 19 wiped his time altogether. Stuck in traffic, he radioed a blunt, “Mate, what the f**k was that?”—and that was that.
SQ2 outs: Antonelli (11th), Hadjar (12th), Gasly (13th), Stroll (14th), Lawson (15th, no time).
SQ1 was its usual brush with chaos. Williams got Sainz turned around quickly after practice trouble, and Ferrari did the same for Leclerc. Verstappen and Hamilton traded early blows, but once everyone found rhythm on the mediums, Norris topped the opening phase with a 1:33.224, Verstappen second and Piastri third.
Drama rippled further back. Charles Leclerc was a shock name hovering near the cutline, only squeaking through after hitting traffic at the final corner. Yuki Tsunoda, in the senior Red Bull, never got the chance—released too late to make the flag, he ended up a passenger on his own out-lap, fuming as the clock beat him to Turn 20. Gabriel Bortoleto didn’t set a time after a track-limits deletion, while Haas had a rough time of it with Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman both out alongside Alpine’s Franco Colapinto.
There was also the now-standard slow‑lap policing: the stewards noted a clutch of drivers for exceeding maximum delta—Hadjar, Tsunoda, Albon, Norris, Verstappen, Russell, Hülkenberg, Antonelli and Stroll—before ultimately deciding no further action was needed.
All of which leaves a tasty sprint grid. Verstappen versus Norris into that steep climb to Turn 1 is the headline, and with Piastri shadowing, McLaren has two bullets to fire at a Red Bull that suddenly looks razor-sharp when it counts. Hülkenberg’s fourth is the kind of result Sauber will frame; Russell and Alonso will be lurking if it kicks off ahead; and Sainz starting ahead of Hamilton is its own little sub-plot in a season full of new alliances and old rivalries.
The bigger picture? The balance of power is still ebbing and flowing between McLaren’s race-day authority and Verstappen’s qualifying punch. This was the latter, emphatically so. If he converts from pole in the sprint, he’ll keep tugging at McLaren’s lead in a championship that refuses to settle. And Austin, as ever, looks delighted to keep stirring the pot.
