Formula 1 News: Russell crashes saving pole for Norris in USGP

George Russell crashed and brought out the caution flag just when Max Verstappen was on a lap to win the pole position for the USGP, but he had to slow and Lando Norris won pole with a lap of 1m32.330s around the Circuit of the Americas.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Norris admitted he was lucky to win the pole, but “I’ll take it,” he said. Verstappen will start 2nd, 0.031s behind.

“It was a beautiful lap, I wasn’t going to go much quicker. You know when you do a lap and you think damn, it’s going to be tough to beat that.

“We’ve been on the back foot all weekend, not on the pace of the Ferrari or the Red Bull so sometimes as a driver you have to do something, which I did. Carlos said he was going quicker, Max said he was going quicker so maybe I was lucky but I’ll take it.”

“Unfortunately, I couldn’t finish the lap as otherwise we’d have had a really good shot, but that’s how it goes,” said Verstappen who won the pole for the Sprint Race and then won the Sprint Race.

“We made some minor changes on the car that felt nice, so I hope that will be positive for tomorrow.”

Carlos Sainz Jr. was third in his #55 Ferrari, 0.322s behind Norris. “That was the target, to do a step in qualifying compared to yesterday, We were P5 yesterday and we are now P3. I was three tenths up on my lap going into Turn 16 with only three corners left – but it’s easy to say now. With those two guys in front, it should be a fun one.”

Charles Leclerc was 4th in the #16 Ferrari, 0.410s behind Norris.

Oscar Piastri rounded out the top-5 in the 2nd McLaren, 0.620s behind his teammate.

George Russell, Pierre Gasly, Fernando  Alonso, Kevin Magnussen and Sergio Perez rounded out the top 10.

Russell, who ruined Verstappen and Sainz’s times that would have beaten Norris, ran out of talent into Turn 19, clipped the curbs and lost the rear, spinning off across the gravel and into the wall. Replays showed that the gravel scrubbed a fair bit of speed, so the impact wasn’t as scary as it first looked.

His Mercedes teammate will start way back in 18th after going out in Q1, spelling a disastrous day for the Silver Arrows team. Hamilton was 19th but will move up one position to 18th at the start after Liam Lawson’s grid penalty for a new engine.

Having already raced the Sprint is that they have an idea about tire wear – and for McLaren and Mercedes, that spells danger. Neither team did well in managing their tires in the Sprint compared to Red Bull and Ferrari, so there is work to do for them overnight to gain a better understanding of why they had issues with tire deg.

Well, we’ve had Verstappen versus Norris already this weekend in the Sprint with the Dutchman coming out on top. But what about Part II?

Norris will start ahead this time out, perhaps lucky to do so, but championships have turned on smaller moments.

2024 USGP Qualifying Results