Antonelli claims landmark pole position in United States GP qualifying

Reaching a notable milestone in his career, Andrea Kimi Antonelli secured pole position for the United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas by posting a 1:34.035. It marks pole number 10 for the Mercedes driver, who managed to keep Max Verstappen at arm’s length.

Verstappen finished second for Red Bull, missing out by 0.179 seconds in dry conditions with track temperatures hovering between 36.5 and 40.7°C. Teammate Isack Hadjar backed up the Red Bull pace by taking third, ending 0.215s off the benchmark set by Antonelli.

Tyre Strategy and Compound Selection

Tyre management was central to how the session unfolded across the field. Antonelli worked hard through the phases, using five sets of tyres in total across the afternoon, moving through a Medium and four Soft sets. Ultimately, the best laps for the entire top ten were all set using the soft compound. Antonelli, Verstappen, Hadjar, Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, Oscar Piastri, Lando Norris, Arvid Lindblad, and Liam Lawson all locked in their decisive times on the soft rubber.

Track Limits and Teammate Battles

The stewards kept a close eye on the asphalt limits, deleting 8 lap times in total for track limit infringements. Gabriel Bortoleto fell foul of the rule twice, while Pierre Gasly, Carlos Sainz, and Oliver Bearman also lost single lap times. Further down the order, internal garage battles provided clear separation. Antonelli proved 0.441 seconds quicker than teammate Russell at Mercedes. Gasly finished 0.642 seconds ahead of Franco Colapinto at Alpine, and Nico Hülkenberg had 0.533 seconds in hand over Bortoleto at Audi. Lindblad reached Q3 for Racing Bulls, whereas teammate Lawson exited earlier in Q2.

The Grand Prix takes place on Sunday 25 October at 20:00 UTC, with the forecast pointing to 25°C, partly cloudy skies, and a wind speed of 13 km/h.

Timing data: Jolpica-F1, tyres and race control: OpenF1. Forecast: MET Norway (CC BY 4.0). Charts and results card by Slip Stream GP.

This report was written automatically with the help of AI (Google Gemini), from public timing data. Every number in the tables and charts comes straight from the data. Spotted a mistake? Tell me.

Published by

Pasindu Senavirathna

Data

Jolpica-F1, OpenF1, Wikidata and Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and MET Norway

Last updated

25 Oct 2026, 23:20