Max Verstappen broke the Mercedes grip on pole position for the United States Grand Prix, putting Red Bull at the front of the grid at the Circuit of the Americas for the first time since 2013.
Although he looked to have the edge over Lewis Hamilton from the start of qualifying, Verstappen still had to dig deep in his final run in Q3 to produce a time of 1:32.910s to take the top spot by two tenths.
"It was quite exciting out there, also in Q2 to make the lap time with the harder compound," he told the media in parc ferme after the end of the session.
Verstappen admitted that his first lap in the final top ten pole shoot-out round hadn't gone as well as he had been hoping for: "In Q3 my first lap wasn't amazing."
Then he was nearly caught out when some light rain moved across the circuit as the drivers made their final runs.
“In the final lap it started spitting like a bit of drizzle, in the last sector especially,” he confirmed. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to hang on to my lap time.
“But it was enough," he said, sounding relieved. "And of course, to put the lap time in and be on pole position and also to be P1 and P3 as a team, I think was a very strong performance.”
With his team mate Sergio Perez taking third place and Valtteri Bottas only ninth on the grid because of an engine change penalty, Verstappen is hoping that Red Bull will be able to come up with a successful team strategy for tomorrow's race.
He said they would “work together as a team to get the best possible result” when the lights go out in Austin, with verstappen holding a six point lead in the championship over his rival coming into this weekend's race.
Verstappen acknowledged that it should make for a thrilling start to the race with Hamilton likely to pull out all the stops to take the lead in the run up to turn 1.
"I guess that's what people like," he said. "From here onwards, we'll hope to have a good start, and then work together as a team to get the best possible result."
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