Back-to-back weekend brought the F1 caravan from Mexico City to Texas, Austin. Some dark clouds had gathered upon Ferrari in the last free practice session, as Leclerc's SF90 had been hit with an oil leak. This had forced the team to switch an older-spec engine to Charles' car for the qualifying. Sebastian in his Lina made a small mistake on his first run in Q1, which left the German with no time. Meanwhile, McLaren showed amazing performance, as Sainz made it on the top of the time sheets with 10 minutes remaining. Teammate Norris had also jumped fourth in the charts. However, a moment later Hamilton robbed Sainz of the fastest lap time, and Verstappen went second fastest. Bottas was third, and after a successful run Sebastian moved fourth. Unbelievable but true, McLaren had another ace up to their sleeve, as Norris clocked the fastest lap time in the dying moments of the first session! Alfa Romeo's performance, on the other hand, left a lot to hope for. Kimi moved 15th on his last attempt, but teammate Giovinazzi knocked the Iceman out of the second session. As Grosjean moved 15th in the very end, it meant, that both Alfa Romeos were out of Q2 for the first time this season. It wasn't "an ordinary day at the office" for Toro Rosso's Gasly, either, as the Frenchman made it P4. On the other hand, Leclerc was only in tame P12. In addition to the Alfa Romeo duo, also the familiar names of Russell and Kubica were out of Q2. Racing Point's Perez was to start to the race from the pit lane, as the Mexican had missed the weigh bridge in the free practice session (what a harsh punishment!).
Q2 was all about playing with the tyre strategy. Both the Red Team and the Silver Team sent their drivers out on the medium rubber. Red Bull had a differing strategy for their drivers; Verstappen came out on the medium compound, whilst Albon opted for the soft Pirellis. The battle on track was fiery; the top four was all within 0.15s! At this point the Mercedes duo of Hamilton and Bottas had the upper hand on the Red Team. However, the tyre choice played for Albon's favor, and the Thai driver went fastest. Verstappen set an impressive lap time on the medium compound, jumping third. Both Charles and Sebastian made another attempt on the mediums, both making an excellent job. Charles went fastest, but Sebastian was only 0.022s shy of his teammate! Both Mercedes aces and Verstappen came out on the softs at the end of the session, but neither one of them improved his lap time. Kvyat's fastest lap time was deleted due to exceeding the track limits in Turn 19, but the Russian was out of Q3 anyway. Renault's Hulkenberg missed out on the last segment, whilst teammate Ricciardo made it among the ten fastest. Racing Point's Stroll and the home team Haas' drivers were eliminated from Q3 as well.
During the modern turbo hybrid era Mercedes have always conquered pole at the Circuit of the Americas. And this year proved no exception! Bottas took provisional pole, pipping Sebastian by as tiny margin as 0.012s! Verstappen was third and Charles fourth, with only two tenths off the pace. Hamilton has always enjoyed driving on the Texan soil, but now he was only fifth after the first runs. Usually the track always improves towards the end of the session, but this time the second runs saw no improvements. Bottas scored his 11th career pole, which was his fifth one this season. It's an impressive piece of statistics, as in spite of Hamilton's firm lead in the championship standings, he has scored only four poles this season. The battle for pole was hair-raising, as Sebastian was only 0.012s down on the Finn! Verstappen in third had only a 0.067s margin to Bottas as well. I don't know, if it was down to the engine change, but Charles was only able to make it fourth. Surprisingly, Hamilton was really left on the fifth grid slot. Albon qualified sixth for Red Bull, and he was followed by the McLaren duo of Sainz and Norris. Renault's Ricciardo and Toro Rosso's Gasly rounded out the top ten.
Today's start will certainly be interesting. Turn 1 is definitely one of the hottest action-zones on the track. The track seems to be extremely bumpy this year, so I wouldn't be surprised to see even some technical failures on the cars. After the difficult two thirds of the season, Sebastian has found his lost self-confidence, so I really hope the US GP will be another sequel to his success story!
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