Rosberg beats Hamilton for USGP pole

Nico Rosberg

Nico Rosberg took a commanding pole position at the United States Grand Prix in Austin, enjoying a gap of almost four tenths of a second to Lewis Hamilton.

Having seen his teammate top all three practice sessions and the opening segment of qualifying, the German delivered on his Friday promise of having pace in hand by blasting to his ninth pole of the season. His latest success means he is guaranteed to out-qualify Hamilton over the course of the season.

Rosberg showed the first glimpses of his true pace in Q2 as he topped the timesheets whilst his teammate complained about his brakes constantly locking up over the radio. It was the first time Rosberg had headed Hamilton all weekend and heaped the pressure on ahead of the top-ten shootout.

Rosberg now leads Hamilton 10-7 in qualifying and cannot be beaten.

The German set the pace after the initial runs and found further time on his second set of tires to extend his advantage over Hamilton who failed to improve, landing the first blow this weekend in the title fight.

Nico Rosberg

"It's been a great day, I'm very happy. With my engineers, I arrived at a car which I was really happy with," said Rosberg.

"The wind was changing so that made it very challenging, it wasn't easy to get everything right. But it's the race which counts and I need to fully focus on tomorrow."

Hamilton, meanwhile, was bedeviled by a brake issue. "Once you lose your confidence on the brakes because you know it is going to lock then you are kind of stuffed," he told Sky Sports F1. "I tried to improve but ultimately I couldn’t get close to Nico."

Williams were once again best of the rest as they locked out the second row, albeit a long way off the pace of Rosberg.

Lewis Hamilton

Aside from Rosberg, the standout performance came from Sauber’s Adrian Sutil who was a surprise Q3 participant. The C33 has been a regular Q1 casualty this season – and indeed his team-mate Esteban Gutierrez made another early exit in Austin. However, the German made it all the way to the final part of qualifying leading to screams of delight over the team radio.

As a result of a penalty for Jenson Button, Sutil's tenth will become ninth for Sunday’s race giving the Swiss squad a great opportunity to score their first points of the season and potentially move ahead of the absent Marussia in the fight for vital Constructors' Championship prize money.

Button outqualified team-mate Kevin Magnussen for the second successive race as he fights for his F1 future. The wind at the Circuit of The Americas had seen the 2009 champion struggle to find a balance he was happy with, but he managed to edge out the Dane and close the deficit in their personal qualifying battle to 8-9. However, Button will drop to 12th when he takes a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change.

"It is so tricky out here today," Button told Sky Sports F1. "It is quite windy, it is cool and it is so inconsistent corner to corner, run to run. None of my laps felt that clean, but seventh is okay. It is always a pity when you are half a tenth away from the car in front. I would love to start seventh tomorrow, but it is P12 after our penalty which is always a pity. So I am going to enjoy this moment then tomorrow the hard work starts."

QUOTES

Red Bull-Renault

Daniel Ricciardo (5th, 1:37.244): "I'm pretty happy with the top five, realistically we're fighting for the last spot on the podium, if Mercedes have a clean race, and we've put ourselves in a good position for that. We were close to Felipe, but hopefully the clean side of the grid will help me out a bit, so we'll see what happens. I'd say we're better on tires than the Williams, but their straight line speed makes that advantage disappear. Hopefully we'll have some good clean battles on track tomorrow, the circuit certainly allows for that and provides some good opportunities, so hopefully we can have some fun!"

Sebastian Vettel (17th, 1:39.621): "It's difficult to say where we are compared to the others teams, it doesn't seem too bad, depending on the conditions which are currently good. In the race tomorrow I think we can move up, our race pace seems okay, but it will be tight. It will be difficult to overtake, as we don't have the ideal straight line speed, hopefully we can get some points tomorrow. Seventh would be a good result."

Christian Horner, Sporting Director: "A very tidy lap by Daniel, I think fifth was the optimum today. He came close to out-qualifying Felipe, but the third row of the grid is still a strong place to be starting tomorrow's race. It's a long drag up the hill to the first corner, so hopefully we can make a good start. A very frustrating qualifying for Sebastian who was only able to do one lap; whatever his result today he will still be starting from the pit lane. On top of that we had to be extremely prudent on engine mileage to make sure we don't incur another engine change before the end of the year."

Thierry Salvi, Renault: "First, we must apologize to Sebastian, as using a sixth Power Unit here forces him to start the race from the pit-lane. As a result there was no need to push in qualifying. Daniel did a good job to set the fifth fastest time at such a challenging track for the Power Unit, which had no problems at all. Tomorrow's race strategy will prove decisive as tire degradation usually plays a significant role. Starting from the pit-lane means Seb faces a tough challenge fighting with a lot of slower cars. But I'm sure he'll give everything he has to bag some points for the team."

Mercedes GP

Nico Rosberg (1st, 1:36.067): "That was really a great team effort today. Starting from pole here in the US is obviously good – but it's tomorrow that counts so there is still some way to go. Together with my engineers we found a great setup which made me feel very comfortable in the car at the end of Qualifying. At the beginning of Q1 I had a lot of understeer but we had different opportunities to explore in terms of changing that. We decided to change the front wing flap angle which worked out perfectly, so I was really able to push a lot through the corners. Now I look forward to tomorrow as I had some good long runs on Friday which allowed me to focus a bit more on the race with my setup."

Lewis Hamilton (2nd, 1:36.443): "It wasn't the easiest of qualifying sessions for me today but I'm still starting from second place and we can have a good fight from there tomorrow. The problem was with the left front brake which was down on temperature and kept locking. Once you lose that confidence and rhythm under braking, it's very difficult. It is a potential issue for the race but I'll talk to our guys now and we can have a good look at it. Hopefully we can try and sand down the disc a little and then tomorrow should be better. The vibration that I had was just a minor flat spot so I'm not worried about that. Nico did a great job this afternoon and at the end I couldn't get close to him so I'll have to try and make it up tomorrow in the race."

Paddy Lowe: "It's brilliant to secure the front row after this morning's practice session proved rather problematic – especially on Nico's side of the garage – so congratulations to him for two successive laps good enough for pole position in Q3. Well done also to Lewis, who had some problems with front locking but still delivered some impressive laps. As the pressure mounts and we home in on the final races of the Championship, it's great to see this fascinating battle between our two drivers and we're looking forward to a good race tomorrow. Tire endurance will be a much more significant factor than it was last year and we may see a variety of strategies and variations in pace during the race."

Toto Wolff, Mercedes Motorsport Director: "That was a great qualifying result – especially after we had some problems with Nico's car during practice this morning and with Lewis' car yesterday afternoon. Nico put in a perfect lap while Lewis was struggling with relatively large amounts of front locking during the session. Since we secured the Constructors' Championship at the last race in Sochi, we haven't been taking anything for granted and have kept pushing. There has been a lot of talk about the momentum between the drivers in recent weeks but the reality is that we're watching an equal fight at the very highest level – and this is a great thing for Formula One."

Ferrari

Fernando Alonso (6th, 1:37.610): "I think that this was a good qualifying and, looking at the times of the cars ahead of me, I don't think I could have done much more. Before coming here, we had thought about changing the power unit, but then we opted for one we had already used, so as not to start from the pit lane. The track surface is much better than in past years, with a lot more grip, but at the same time, there's more tire degradation so a two stopper is inevitable. The temperatures have dropped from yesterday to today, but I don't think this factor, along with the expectation that the wind direction will change for tomorrow, will affect the strategy. The races are long and anything can happen, including on the reliability front, as has especially been the case this season."

Kimi Raikkonen (9th, 1:37.804): "The behavior of my car was better today than yesterday and I was reasonably happy with the balance, even if I still didn't manage to put together a good enough lap to be higher up the grid. For some reason, we haven't managed to fix a problem with the front end. In all sectors of the track the car tends to slide causing a lot of understeer. Unfortunately, this is a very limiting factor and not ideal. But as usual, tomorrow in the race, we will try our best to get the most out of what we have to work with. I am sure that by continuing to work, improving day by day, we will soon find a solution."

Pat Fry: "The increase in temperature from free practice three meant that, in qualifying, it was as warm as the averages expected for tomorrow and produced an improvement in both the behavior of the car and the performance of the tires. Unfortunately, we struggled to get the Mediums up to temperature in Q1, while on the Softs, we were more or less where we should be on the first lap. As was the case in Sochi, tire performance will play a key role here in Austin, even if the scenario is very different: we expect the soft compound to show quick degradation, while the harder one should allow us to run a more extended stint. However, during the race it will be very important to manage both compounds, because graining could severely affect performance. The start, reliability and pit work will be the factors on which to build our race tomorrow, as we try and gain some places."

Lotus-Renault

Pastor Maldonado (11th, 1:38.467): "The car feels more solid and together than it has for the last few races which meant I was able to push more than usual. We know we work better in the faster corners – just as we saw in Barcelona – and I think there is still more pace in the car. On my Q2 lap I made a small mistake in the second to last corner which would have been worth another tenth and then we'd have been in Q3. We're well placed for tomorrow; we need to have a good strategy, stay relaxed and calm and then let's fight for the points. I think we have a great chance to score and that will be the main focus."

Romain Grosjean (18th, 1:39.679): "The car was good this morning, I was enjoying driving it and I even said it was the best car I've driven for a while! Unfortunately, it didn't feel the same when I went out for qualifying and it was a real struggle to find any pace – which we clearly didn't find, given our qualifying position. On the plus side, my car worked well this morning, as did Pastor's in qualifying, so there's still potential in what will be a long race, with a few pit stops to help shake up the order."

Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer: "We're reasonably happy. We can be reasonably happy with today's qualifying session. It's a shame for Pastor to miss out on Q3 as he definitely had the pace to get there. Nonetheless, after our recent performances we can be content with qualifying eleventh and we'll actually start in P10 with Jenson's penalty. Starting tenth with a fresh set of tires means we can certainly fight for points from there. In contrast, Romain had a troubled session; he felt the car was very different than in practice this morning and had a lot of problems with front tires locking. We'll be taking a good look at that to try and solve the issue as things were working really well for him in FP3. Overall, it's a good step up in performance for us this weekend. For the race, we can expect two to three stops which should make for quite an exciting race with everyone's different strategies coming into play. Certainly, we're seeing better tire performance for ourselves than in Sochi where we really struggled."

McLaren-Mercedes

Jenson Button (7th, 1:37.655): "That was a lot of effort for 12th on the grid. It was so close between Kevin and myself on every run this afternoon. My fastest lap wasn't amazing – it's quite difficult to string a lap together around here, because you struggle with the inconsistencies caused by moderate grip, high winds and low ambient temperatures. But we can be reasonably happy with where we are, particularly given the balance issues we faced this morning. In that respect, Hiroshi-san, our tire guru, did a great job – we were a little bit lost this morning, but were in complete understanding by this afternoon. The engineers made the difference. It's frustrating to have qualified on the clean side of the grid, but be forced onto the dirty side by a penalty. That makes things trickier, but this race looks like it'll probably be at least a two-stopper, maybe even a three-stopper, which opens up more strategy options for us and gives us more of an opportunity to make up positions."

Kevin Magnussen (8th, 1:37.706): "Qualifying seventh and eighth isn't particularly satisfying for anyone, but it's pretty much where we are with our car right now. Jenson and I were pretty evenly matched all afternoon, so I think it's pretty safe to say we got the maximum out of the car. I think tomorrow's race will be a two- or even three-stopper for most people, so we should hopefully be able to mix things up a little with our strategy. That's usually a good way to make forward progress, and I think scoring some useful points should certainly be possible."

Eric Boullier, Racing Director: "We found ourselves struggling for grip in FP3 this morning, but our engineers responded to that setback with commendable efficiency, and the result was improved competitiveness for this afternoon's qualifying session. Both Jenson and Kevin then mined the absolute maximum from their cars, recording Q3 lap-times separated by a mere one-twentieth of a second [0.051s]. They had been even more closely matched in Q1 and Q2, as it happens, in which sessions their lap-times had differed by just 0.017s and 0.023s. Their Q3 lap-times placed them seventh and eighth on the final qualifying time sheets; however, as a result of Jenson's five-place grid penalty, unfortunately he'll start tomorrow's race from P12. Even so, steadfast and intrepid competitor that he is, he certainly won't forsake the ambition to score points; wily yet combative, he'll push as hard as ever, mark my words. Kevin, too, is well placed to score points tomorrow, and as a result we're hopeful of further closing the gap between ourselves and Ferrari in the constructors' world championship points standings."

Force India-Mercedes

Sergio Perez (12th, 1:38.554): "It has been a difficult weekend so far working with the car balance because the windy conditions have impacted on us quite a lot. The wind was always changing direction, making the car quite unpredictable and making it difficult to be consistent. So it was hard to get the perfect lap together. I had to use two sets of soft tires in Q1 just to make sure I got through to Q2, which meant I only had a single set of new soft tires to use in Q2. Given the conditions I think we've done a good job, but I wish I could have done even better for the fans because they have made a big effort to come here and show their support. Hopefully tomorrow we can race well and be in the fight for some points."

Nico Hulkenberg (13th, 1:35.98): "To begin with, qualifying was going well and I really believed Q3 was possible. On my final lap in Q2 I was on target for the top ten until something really unusual happened because a tear-off visor wrapped itself around my front tire going into turn twelve. I've never experienced something like that in my career and when I turned into the corner I had no grip, I ran wide and lost a couple of tenths. It was my final Q2 lap so it was quite frustrating and unlucky. Looking ahead to the race, it's going to be tough because the soft tires are quite a challenge here and we expect more hot temperatures tomorrow. Scoring points will be our aim as we are normally stronger on Sunday afternoon."

Dr. Vijay Mallya, Team Principal: "We were probably expecting a little bit more from today's qualifying session, especially considering that Nico has been inside the top ten in all the practice sessions and looked very strong during this morning's session. Ultimately he was unlucky when it mattered today with a strange incident disturbing his best opportunity to make the top ten. Without that he would have made Q3. Sergio has been struggling more to fine-tune the balance here, due in part to the windy weather. However, he pulled together a reasonable lap and he should be able to race well from there."

Sauber-Ferrari

Adrian Sutil (10th, 1:38.810): "It was a great qualifying. In the morning we had a good free practice, and I felt comfortable with the car. The air and track temperatures went up a little in comparison to the morning, but the balance of the car was still good. We put in a great performance today, and we deserved to make it into Q3 for the first time this year. The entire team did a great job. I am pleased for everyone within the team as, especially in our current situation, this is an important result which is crucial for the motivation."

Esteban Gutierrez (16th, 1:39.555): "It was a tough qualifying for me. We were trying to find the best compromise with the set-up for the car. However, we have not been able to extract the maximum out of the soft tires. Adrian did a good job and found a lap time on the soft compound. We will now look forward to the race tomorrow, and it will be important to put everything together in order to achieve the best position possible."

Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: "We are very pleased about this qualifying result. Adrian put in an excellent performance, and the whole team did a great job. It is a relief to look at the timing sheets, and realize we can do it. We have to get the maximum out of this position tomorrow."

Giampaolo Dall'Ara, Head of Track Engineering: "Finishing qualifying in the top ten is the sweet toping on what has been a bitter season so far. It's definitely a motivating factor for everyone. We need to praise the driver who did an excellent job. And a big compliment to everyone in the team who never gave up. Overall the day was smooth, and technically everything went well. I'm very happy about where we stand now, and I hope we can convert that into a good race result tomorrow, which we know will be challenging, but we will do our best."

Toro Rosso-Renault

Daniil Kvyat (14th, 1:38.699): "Today's Q2 was more promising, but at the end we couldn't do better than this. We just had no pace and now we have to understand why. We really didn't have the speed and we've been struggling with the car, the tires and the grip. In addition, this weekend and the next one in Brazil are compromised by the 10 grid positions penalty. We have to accept the truth, we had a poor Qualifying. Anyway we'll try to do our best, making the most out of the car. Yesterday's long runs worked quite well, so we'll see what we can achieve tomorrow. Hopefully we can find some extra speed and aim for a good race. During the Grand Prix anything can happen, so we'll keep on pushing as always."

Jean-Eric Vergne (15th, 1:39.250): "Unfortunately today we had to change to an old specification engine, therefore we knew we couldn't expect the best performance. In addition to this, not to drive in FP1 and having experienced problems this morning meant I did not have so much time available to set up the car properly. A lot of oversteer made it very difficult to drive today in qualifying. It's a shame but let's move forward, hoping to have a good race tomorrow."

James Key, Technical Director: "We struggled a little bit today with getting the tires to work over short runs, we had already started to see this in FP2 on Friday afternoon. The track conditions are changing quite significantly here with both hot and cold conditions over the last two days. We worked a lot during the night and we thought we were going in the right direction to deal with a hotter track condition for qualifying. That made it trickier in FP3 but it didn't come together as we hoped this afternoon. To be fair, the drivers did everything they could, the car was really difficult to drive because of a considerable lack of grip from the tires, so there are several issues we need to look at to try and understand where we have list performance. For Jev, he had a compromised weekend, with a lack of running and he had to jump into qualifying after a change of engine and without any running on Option tires this morning. As for Daniil, he's got a penalty for using a seventh engine that we will have to spread between here and the Brazil grid. It has been a frustrating day, but the long run pace on high fuel levels didn't look bad yesterday afternoon. We have to pick ourselves up from a difficult day, concentrate on tomorrow and try to get the most out of the race."

Ricardo Penteado, Renault: "That certainly wasn't our best qualifying session of the season, but there are some underlying issues that we now need to analyze. The performance we saw in yesterday's practice sessions suggested we were contenders to make Q3, so 14th and 15th fastest times isn't what we were expecting. Sure, we had to make a late change to Jean-Eric's Power Unit after this morning's practice session and he wasn't able to finalize a qualifying set-up, but that doesn't explain the performance drop-off both cars experienced in qualifying. We'll look at the data this evening to work out whether it's engine-related."

Williams-Mercedes

Valtteri Bottas (3rd, 1:36.906): "A very good session today and I felt like I got everything out of the car that I could with two good flying laps. It took me a while this week to get the balance right and to get the car to a stage where I could fully trust it, but we got it right when it mattered. It will be difficult to catch the Mercedes cars as they are still ahead in terms of raw pace so we need to be ready to capitalize in case they have any problems, but also to not do anything too risky as we need to stay ahead of those behind us."

Felipe Massa (4th, 1:37.205): "Another strong qualifying performance from the team and third and fourth is the best we could have achieved today. The car is looking competitive and whilst Mercedes are still looking very strong, we are the best of the rest and we showed good long run pace yesterday which is encouraging for tomorrow. I would have liked to have finished ahead of Valtteri because I'm now on the dirty side of the grid, but I still have a good chance to finish on the podium so we need to make sure that we get the strategy right to make the most of our speed."

Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: "We came into this weekend expecting to have the second fastest car and we have met our expectations so far by qualifying third and fourth. Realizing your targets is not always an easy thing to do in qualifying because there are so many variables, so it was a very good job by the team and the drivers. There are a number of strategies open to us and we now need to do our homework to understand how we protect these positions and possibly move forwards in the race."

Results

Pos	Driver	Car	Time	Behind
1	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1m36.067s	0.000s
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1m36.443s	0.376s
3	Valtteri Bottas	Williams/Mercedes	1m36.906s	0.839s
4	Felipe Massa	Williams/Mercedes	1m37.205s	1.138s
5	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull/Renault	1m37.244s	1.177s
6	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1m37.610s	1.543s
7	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren/Mercedes	1m37.706s	1.639s
8	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1m37.804s	1.737s
9	Adrian Sutil	Sauber/Ferrari	1m38.810s	2.743s
10	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus/Renault	1m38.467s	Q2
11	Sergio Perez	Force India/Mercedes	1m38.554s	Q2
12	Jenson Button	McLaren/Mercedes	1m37.655s	Q2
13	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India/Mercedes	1m38.598s	Q2
14	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m39.250s	Q2
15	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber/Ferrari	1m39.555s	Q1
16	Romain Grosjean	Lotus/Renault	1m39.679s	Q1
17	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m38.699s	Q1
18	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull/Renault	1m39.621s	Q1

Penalties:

Button: Five places for gearbox change
Kvyat: Five places for engine component change
Vettel: Pitlane start for taking sixth power unit