SportsFormula 1
Antonelli takes pole in Austin and starts one race from the world title
The Mercedes driver beat Max Verstappen by 0.179 seconds. A win on Sunday makes him champion if George Russell, starting sixth, finishes ninth or lower and Lewis Hamilton fifth or lower.
Key points
- Kimi Antonelli took pole with 1 minute 34.035 seconds, his first since the Belgian Grand Prix.
- Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar put both Red Bulls on the first two rows.
- Antonelli is champion on Sunday only if he wins the race and his rivals finish low enough.
Kimi Antonelli put his Mercedes on pole position for the United States Grand Prix early on Sunday morning India time, and now goes into the race in Austin one win away from the Formula 1 world championship.
The 20-year-old lapped the Circuit of the Americas in 1 minute 34.035 seconds, 0.179 seconds quicker than Max Verstappen. It was his first pole since the Belgian Grand Prix. Isack Hadjar made it two Red Bulls in the top three, and Charles Leclerc, who had topped both practice sessions on Friday, had to settle for fourth ahead of his Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
What Antonelli needs
Antonelli leads the championship by 102 points from his team-mate George Russell and by 111 from Hamilton, with six races left including this one. He can clinch the title only by winning on Sunday, and even then his rivals’ results decide it.
If Russell finishes ninth or lower and Hamilton fifth or lower behind a winning Antonelli, the title is his, making him the youngest champion in the sport’s history and the first Italian to win it since Alberto Ascari in 1953. If Russell holds a top-eight finish, the fight moves on to Mexico.
Russell starts sixth, 0.441 seconds off pole, which means he would need to drop three places for the title to be settled in Texas. Hamilton lines up fifth, right on the edge of the result that would end his chances.
The rest of the grid
Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris were seventh and eighth for McLaren. Norris lost his final lap in the top-10 shootout for exceeding track limits. Arvid Lindblad was ninth for Racing Bulls but takes a grid penalty for power unit changes, and his team-mate Liam Lawson set no time in the final session.
Gabriel Bortoleto of Audi starts from the back after his own power unit changes, and Alpine’s Franco Colapinto was also penalised. Oliver Bearman of Haas had a lap deleted for running wide at Turn 11 and dropped from 13th to 16th.
There was a scare for Fernando Alonso during qualifying. Formula 1 said on X that “Valtteri noted a small fire at the back of Fernando’s car at pit exit.”
Track limits were again a theme, as they had been on Friday, when laps were struck off for Antonelli, Russell, Hadjar and Hamilton in practice. Antonelli, whose Mercedes team had adjusted his seat on Friday after he complained it was moving over the bumps, kept it tidy when it mattered.