Lewis Hamilton stormed to pole position at the United States Grand Prix, ahead of title rival Sebastian Vettel, building on a practice clean sweep with another new lap record at the Circuit of the Americas.
Mercedes driver Hamilton topped all three stages of qualifying in warm conditions, ending up two-tenths clear of Ferrari man Vettel, whom he leads by 59 points in the standings.
Valtteri Bottas had to settle for third in the other Mercedes, dropping behind Vettel on the final Q3 runs, having initially backed up team-mate Hamilton.
Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull) and Kimi Räikkönen (Ferrari) posted identical lap times, but as Ricciardo’s came first, he will start from fourth position.
Max Verstappen took sixth in the other Red Bull, but will drop towards the back of the grid as one of several drivers with a power unit-related penalty.
Force India’s Esteban Ocon starred on his way to seventh, with Carlos Sainz Jr. also impressing in his first qualifying session at Renault to take eighth.
Fernando Alonso produced a fine Q2 lap to reach the final qualifying phase, where he took ninth, beating Sergio Pérez (Force India).
Massa was the ‘best of the rest’ during final practice. But he could not keep Williams inside the top 10 positions in qualifying, dropping out in Q2 in 11th.
On his return to F1, Daniil Kvyat took a 12th. He is ahead of Stoffel Vandoorne in 13th.
Romain Grosjean had to take avoiding action in Q1, as a slow-moving Stroll got in his way exiting Turn 19. He progressed to Q2, and qualified 14th.
Nico Hülkenberg had the pace to follow new team-mate Sainz Jr. into Q3. But he opted to save tyres for the race, given his 15-place penalty.
Ericsson came close to giving Sauber its first Q2 appearance since Azerbaijan. He was just 7-thousandths down on Grosjean in the first phase.
Stroll, under investigation by the stewards, encountered an engine issue and wound up 17th, followed by debutant Brendon Hartley. The later who will take a 20-place drop.
Pascal Wehrlein made a mistake at the penultimate corner en route to 19th. He is 3 spots behind team-mate Ericsson. The other Haas of Magnussen is bringing up the rear.
Magnussen is also under investigation after impeding Pérez on the entry to Turn 13.
INITIAL CLASSIFICATION (END OF QUALIFYING): Confirmation of a dominate performance by @LewisHamilton #USGP ?? #Quali #F1 pic.twitter.com/W4NXSGKvLD
— Formula 1 (@F1) October 21, 2017
