Verstappen takes US sprint pole from Norris

Max Verstappen is 63 points behind drivers' championship leader Oscar Piastri with six races remaining this season

Red Bull's Max Verstappen beat McLaren's title rivals Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to take pole for the sprint race at the United States Grand Prix.

Verstappen, with the very last lap of the session, displaced Norris at the top of the timesheets by 0.071 seconds in Austin.

Piastri, leading Norris by 22 points in the championship with six races to go, was 0.309secs behind his team-mate.

Sauber's Nico Hulkenberg was a sensational fourth, ahead of the Mercedes of George Russell and Fernando Alonso's Aston Martin.

Williams' Carlos Sainz took seventh, ahead of the first of the struggling Ferraris, driven by Lewis Hamilton.

Their team-mates Alex Albon and Charles Leclerc completed the top 10 at the Circuit of the Americas.

Verstappen's pole position underlined McLaren's belief that the Dutchman is still in title contention, despite being 63 points off the lead.

The four-time champion has won two of the past three races and finished second in the other following a revival by his Red Bull team.

"It's been a nice qualifying, throughout all the segments it was quite close," Verstappen said.

"It was just about trying to put it all together. I still expect it to be a tough battle tomorrow in the sprint but that's exactly what we want to see, right?

"The wind is very gusty and the track is very bumpy so the car can easily step out on you in the high speed."

The sprint race is at 18:00 BST on Saturday with qualifying for Sunday's main grand prix at 22:00.

Norris 'disappointed' and Piastri 'scruffy'

Piastri had looked to be struggling compared with Norris since the start of practice and was a good chunk off the Briton in all three qualifying sessions.

Norris said: "Disappointed not to be on pole but not a surprise for us to be just a bit slower than the Red Bull lately.

"A little couple of bits here and there I could have improved on and caught a few bumps a little bit wrong, that's the difficulty of this track. Otherwise, all happy."

Piastri said: "A pretty scruffy lap. Just didn't really get it together. In some ways, I feel a bit fortunate to be third. The pace in the car is good. It's nothing major, just been a bit of a messy lap and hopefully I can tidy it up tomorrow."

The sprint offers eight points for the winner down to one for eighth place.

The stand-out performance in qualifying came from Hulkenberg, the first time he has qualified in the top 10 all year, and the best Sauber performance of the season.

Their previous top grid position was seventh for team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto in Hungary at the start of August.

"Satisfied, happy, as you might imagine," the German said. "P1 looked too good to be true. We weren't sure if it was the real deal but we were able to continue that trend. Hopefully we can hang on to it this weekend.

"The pace was just there. The car seemed to be fast and in a good window, hit the sweet spot, I think that's all."

Alonso's sixth place on the grid was Aston Martin's best grid position since he was fifth in Hungary and also impressive.

The two-time champion was asked by his team to find a second in lap time for his final run, and he found exactly that - only Verstappen and Hamilton matched that feat.

"Definitely happy," Alonso said. "P6 for us is one of the best qualifying of the year. We have two Williams and Ferraris behind and we know they should be in front and we try to keep them behind as long as possible.

"I have been performing well this year, especially in qualifying. In the races we fall back to our natural position some times. It will not be a season to be remembered but we keep pushing."

Ferrari had a difficult day - Hamilton was nearly a second off the pace and 0.069secs ahead of Leclerc.

Hamilton said: "That was definitely not the pace we were expecting. It was looking good in practice and Q1 was looking decent and then it started to fall away from us."

Leclerc, who lost some laps at the end of practice with a gearbox failure, said: "Very surprising the teams who are strong this weekend, apart from McLaren and Red Bull. You have Nico in front that has done probably an amazing lap but he has been consistently fast all weekend. We have to understand if they have understood what we didn't but today was a very poor day."

Top 10

1. Max Verstappen (Red Bull)

2. Lando Norris (McLaren)

3. Oscar Piastri (McLaren)

4. Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber)

5. George Russell (Mercedes)

6. Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin)

7. Carlos Sainz (Williams)

8. Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari)

9. Alex Albon (Williams)

10. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)

• Full sprint qualifying results