Hamilton beats Vettel to USGP pole position

Lewis Hamilton beat Sebastian Vettel to pole position for this weekend’s United States Formula 1 Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas.

Hamilton claimed his eleventh pole of the year, comfortably beating title rival Vettel by two tenths, the Mercedes driver setting his 1:33.108s best early in Qualifying 3 and unable to beat his own time with his final effort.

Vettel split a provisional Mercedes front-row lockout with his final lap to move up a spot into second on the grid to bump Valtteri Bottas to third.

Daniel Ricciardo got the better of his Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen to start fourth with the Dutchman sixth, Kimi Raikkonen between the two Red Bulls for Ferrari.

Verstappen will pick up a penalty following an engine change and will start further down the grid as a result.

Also in the top ten was Carlos Sainz on his Renault debut, getting the better of Nico Hulkenberg who elected to sit out Qualifying 2 as he was eliminated from the session.

Felipe Massa was unlucky to miss out on a Qualifying 3 berth in the leading Williams, while Daniil Kvyat, Stoffel Vandoorne and Romain Grosjean also missed the cut.

Falling victim in Qualifying 1 was Marcus Ericsson, Lance Stroll, Toro Rosso debutant Brendon Hartley, Pascal Wehrlein and Kevin Magnussen, who qualified the Haas on last.

A host of post-qualifying penalties will change the order, as could investigations into blocking for Magnussen and Stroll.

The 56-lap United States Grand Prix gets underway at 06:00 AEDT Monday morning.

Result: United States Formula 1 Grand Prix Qualifying

Position	Driver	Car	Time	Gap
1	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1m33.108s
2	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1m33.347s	0.239s
3	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1m33.568s	0.460s
4	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull/Renault	1m33.577s	0.469s
5	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1m33.577s	0.469s
6	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1m33.658s	0.550s
7	Esteban Ocon	Force India/Mercedes	1m34.647s	1.539s
8	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Renault	1m34.852s	1.744s
9	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1m35.007s	1.899s
10	Sergio Perez	Force India/Mercedes	1m35.148s	2.040s
11	Felipe Massa	Williams/Mercedes	1m35.155s	1.718s
12	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m35.529s	2.092s
13	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren/Honda	1m35.641s	2.204s
14	Romain Grosjean	Haas/Ferrari	1m35.870s	2.433s
15	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault
16	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber/Ferrari	1m36.842s	2.020s
17	Lance Stroll	Williams/Mercedes	1m36.868s	2.046s
18	Brendon Hartley	Toro Rosso/Renault	1m36.889s	2.067s
19	Pascal Wehrlein	Sauber/Ferrari	1m37.179s	2.357s
20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas/Ferrari	1m37.394s	2.572s