F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Hamilton beats Rosberg to pole position in Austin

Lewis Hamilton will start the United States Grand Prix from pole position after beating team-mate Nico Rosberg by 0.216s in Austin.

An impressive final lap of 1:34.999 saw Hamilton secure a potentially crucial pole position as he looks to reduce Rosberg's 33-point lead in the drivers' championship. Rosberg provisionally took pole on his final lap but Hamilton excelled in the high-speed first sector to secure the 58th pole position of his career.

AS IT HAPPENED: United States Grand Prix - Qualifying

Hamilton struck first in Q3 as he beat Rosberg by 0.072s on the first runs, with Mercedes enjoying an advantage of half a second over the rest of the field. Red Bull posed the biggest threat and Daniel Ricciardo took third on the grid but was just over 0.3s adrift of Rosberg and unable to split the Mercedes pair.

Max Verstappen will start alongside Ricciardo in fourth place ahead of the Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel. The two Ferrari drivers struggled to stay in contention with those ahead, ending the session over a second slower than Hamilton and with Nico Hulkenberg close behind. Valtteri Bottas, Felipe Massa and Carlos Sainz round out the top ten.

Tyre tactics came into play during the second part of qualifying, with the two Mercedes drivers opting to progress on the soft compound tyre in order to start the race on the softs on Sunday. Verstappen matched that choice, while Ricciardo used the supersofts and set the fastest time of the session.

The main fight was for the final few spots in the top ten and Sainz pulled out an excellent lap to set the eighth quickest time ahead of the two Williams drivers. It was a lap which ultimately eliminated Sergio Perez as Massa completed just one run and snuck through ahead of the Force India in tenth place.

Fernando Alonso will start from 12th alongside Perez - who will get the bonus of choosing which tyres he starts on having not qualified in the top ten - while Daniil Kvyat and Esteban Gutierrez also dropped out in Q2 ahead of Jolyon Palmer and Marcus Ericsson.

The end of Q1 saw a lot of traffic causing headaches for some drivers, with Jenson Button in particular struggling. Button encountered a number of cars in the final sector, with Palmer’s Renault right on the racing line as he approached the final corner. In fairness to Palmer, he took to the kerb on the outside of the track to give Button as much space as possible, taking to team radio to complain about not being told the McLaren was approaching.

Button was attempting to improve after a poor first lap and only briefly jumped out of the bottom six before he was bumped down again, with Palmer progressing as Romain Grosjean failed with his final lap and was eliminated in 17th place. Kevin Magnussen split the Haas and McLaren, while Pascal Wehrlein was just 0.2s slower than Button in 20th place, beating Felipe Nasr and Manor team-mate Esteban Ocon.

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Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
01	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:36.296	1:36.450	1:34.999
02	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:36.397	1:36.351	1:35.215
03	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:36.759	1:36.255	1:35.509
04	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1:36.613	1:36.857	1:35.747
05	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:36.985	1:36.584	1:36.131
06	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:37.151	1:36.462	1:36.358
07	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:36.950	1:36.626	1:36.628
08	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:37.456	1:37.202	1:37.116
09	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:37.402	1:37.214	1:37.269
10	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:37.744	1:37.175	1:37.326
11	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:37.345	1:37.353
12	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:37.913	1:37.417
13	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso	1:37.844	1:37.480
14	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas	1:38.053	1:37.773
15	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:38.084	1:37.935
16	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:38.040	1:39.356
17	Romain Grosjean	Haas	1:38.308
18	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1:38.317
19	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:38.327
20	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor	1:38.548
21	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:38.583
22	Esteban Ocon	Manor	1:38.806

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.