Max Verstappen edged Mercedes driver George Russell to the United States GP sprint pole by just 0.012 seconds, with GPS trace data revealing that his approach to just one critical corner made the difference.
The result meant Verstappen claimed his first pole – although sprints do not count towards official pole tally statistics - since he topped GP qualifying in Austria, as he lost his Spa GP pole due to his engine-change grid penalty.
It came on a day when Red Bull Racing was under considerable fire from 2024 title rival McLaren over Red Bull's controversial front bib ride height adjuster.
Verstappen responded commandingly – in the RB20 that features a reworked floor edge. Russell was also on the up with the much heavier update on the Mercedes, while McLaren's many design tweaks left Lando Norris feeling they had made little, if any, difference to the MCL38's performance level.
With Oscar Piastri out in Q1 due to a track limits infraction and Norris not to feature in the sprint pole fight as the sun set on Friday evening at Austin, SQ3 was about two drivers that ran at very different times.
Russell led the drivers out of the pits early for the only runs on the soft tyres and shot down the pit straight quicker than Verstappen would do running with the main pack at the end of the short – per the GPS trace data logged on the cars.
However, an oversteer snap exiting the first corner was to prove costly.
It was a spot the W15s had been struggling with all day, which Pirelli says is the lowest grip part of the resurfaced areas of the circuit. The moment wasn't as dramatic as his Turn 1 spin in FP1, but it certainly had an impact.
Having undercooked tyres for the start of the lap will also leave the drivers grappling here – the slides also then sending temperature spikes through the rubber that can become critical later.
On the approach to the rapid left at the start of the Esses, Russell had shipped almost 0.2s to Verstappen, which had come down to 0.17s by the end of the sequence.
But from there, Russell's speed on the straights plus a better traversing of Turn 11 mean he erased his previous losses by the end of the main straight, and while Verstappen's run through Turns 12-15 was better, Russell rocketing through Turns 16-18 meant he held a narrow 0.046s advantage.
Next up was Turn 19, and the scene of the earlier track limits controversy that was to make the critical difference for Verstappen.
He chucked his RB20 in the plunging apex and shot through 3mph faster than Russell on a tighter line to come out with a fractional advantage.
When Russell's ever so slightly quicker run through the final corner made next to no difference to their gap on essentially the same lines, Verstappen's narrow triumph was sealed.
"From lap one, I think the car was in a decent window," Verstappen said of what made the critical difference late on Friday. "I felt quite comfortable. I could attack the high-speed corners. I think we're quite quick there."
Mercedes insiders remain confident that it is in the fight this weekend — particularly as there is so little data on long-run pace thanks to the sprint format, which is leaving Red Bull wary at this stage.
The Silver Arrows squad is also delighted to have got through the Monza/street-circuit run that followed Zandvoort, as the "90° corners" that don't suit "underlying characteristics of our car that are hurting us" in races at such tracks don't suit the W15 – per Mercedes trackside engineering director, Andrew Shovlin.
