Kimi Antonelli got his first shot at sealing the World Championship off to a perfect start by taking pole position for the United States Grand Prix in Austin. In a qualifying that had been billed as a Ferrari vs Red Bull battle, the championship leader put in a stunning opening Q3 lap to beat the Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar.
Red Bull had only used one set of tyres to make Q3, and Verstappen arguably went into the final session as favourite as a result. However, neither driver could improve on their final run, but Hadjar still managed a career-best 3rd behind his teammate, with the pair roughly 2 tenths off Antonelli.
Yet again, Ferrari’s pace faded once reaching Q3. Were it not for a fresh tyre run at the end of Q1 from Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc would have topped both Q1 and Q2 only to not take pole; the exact fate that befell teammate Lewis Hamilton in Singapore.
Once again, only an extremely small margin separated the Ferraris, with Hamilton the only driver to improve in Q3 to go just behind Leclerc in P4 and P5, albeit a quarter of a second off pole.
George Russell’s final lap was another to not come together, finishing P6, nearly half a second off his teammate’s pole time. This would have been P7, but for Lando Norris having his final lap deleted to drop him behind Russell and teammate Oscar Piastri, who he had been considerably quicker than up to that point.
Racing Bulls got both cars into Q3 for the seventh time this season. They elected not to run Liam Lawson in the final session, with Arvid Lindblad taking a 5-place grid penalty, and no prospect of outqualifying the top 4 teams.
How about the others?
Audi may be disappointed to not get a car into Q3. With Gabriel Bortoleto starting at the back of the grid, he gave teammate Nico Hulkenberg a tow on the final run, but this didn’t pay off for the German, who dropped from 8th to 12th as a result.
Pierre Gasly missed out on Q3 by 2 hundredths to Lawson, with teammate Franco Colapinto also dropping to the back as a result of a power unit penalty, which will reshape the midfield order.
Fernando Alonso and Ollie Bearman made Q2 at the expense of their teammates, and will gain 3 places as a result of penalties ahead. They will start 12th and 13th ahead of Lindblad, after Bearman saw his final Q2 lap deleted for track limits.
After Esteban Ocon and Lance Stroll, Williams’ torrid weekend continued, with Alex Albon branding their early final run a “s*** show”, as he was beaten into 19th by teammate Carlos Sainz. Sergio Perez beat Valtteri Bottas by under a tenth in the Cadillac battle at the back.
Ferrari’s drop-off again the key talking point
Once again, the question on everyone’s lips after qualifying was “what happened to Ferrari in Q3?”
A common theme this season has been strong pace in practice and/or the early qualifying running, only for this to fall away in Q3. So why is this?
The common train of thought is the small operating window the Ferrari works in. In Singapore, for example, Hamilton looked so strong in the earlier running before the cars were pushed to their limits. However, when push comes to shove on the final runs, the Ferrari is more on edge, whereas their rivals have greater engine power in reserve.
Leclerc, however, hinted this was not the case in Austin. He suggested they were “missing something” in their tyre preparation and the out lap was “very difficult” after the track temperature dropped.
This caused a drop-off in Ferrari’s performance, rather than a step up from their rivals. Supporting this is the fact that Leclerc went a tenth slower in Q3 than his best Q2 run, in tandem with Antonelli and Verstappen both finding 2-3 tenths.
Not for the first time this season, Fred Vasseur claimed his team had the pace for “at least the front row”, but the Scuderia remain without a Grand Prix pole this season.
Could Antonelli seal the title on Sunday?
On the face of it, an unlikely task has become significantly more possible for Antonelli in Austin. With victory, he needs Hamilton to finish 5th or lower and Russell 9th or lower to seal the title, so he only needs his teammate to drop three places.
However, in reality, this is clearly unlikely and requires misfortune for others, which is out of his hands. He will also have a hard-charging Verstappen behind him, who Toto Wolff believes is quicker over the race run, on a track where the pole man has lost the lead into Turn 1 in four of the last five years.
Whilst he may be cautious with the Dutchman, Antonelli has, however, displayed an incredible maturity and calmness this weekend given the circumstances. To pull the lap he did out of his pocket against the odds was the drive of a champion, and a textbook example of why he finds himself in this position.
