How both Verstappen and Antonelli were “surprised” in United States GP qualifying

“So, Kimi,” trilled Mercedes’ Peter Bonnington down the radio in an unusually relieved tone on Kimi Antonelli’s cool-down lap. “Wasn’t expecting that… that first lap was good enough.”

Final qualifying for the US GP was full of tales of the unexpected: Ferrari’s apparent supremacy through practice deserted it at the critical moment; Max Verstappen missed out on the pole position he was expecting; Isack Hadjar came within a whisker of beating his illustrious team-mate; and Kimi Antonelli held on to an unlikely pole despite having to bail out of his second Q3 run.

Watch: Antonelli Denies Verstappen Pole | United States Grand Prix 2026

“It was surprising,” said Antonelli.

“But also one of the biggest achievements for me today is that I didn't do track limits… That also made our life a little bit easier.

“Medium-speed corners, high-speed, medium-speed,” he continued when asked where the W17 was at its stringest.

“It felt in a good place, the car. We still struggle a little bit in low speed but, overall, the car has been very good in Sector 1 and Sector 2, especially through Turns 8 and 9.

“So that's where we feel the most gain from the package. It's still the low speed that we're trying to understand.”

Antonelli came out on top when it mattered

Photo by: Clive Rose / Formula 1 via Getty Images

By ‘the package’ Antonelli meant the upgrade fitted to both cars in Malaysia, then partially reverted after its seemingly troubled debut as team-mate George Russell went back to the previous spec in Singapore. The purpose of that had been to get a proper back-to-back ‘read’, and the impression that Merc remained in head-scratching mode gained credence when Antonelli swapped to the previous-spec front wing halfway through the weekend at Marina Bay.

The new wing, along with the rest of the upgrade package, was back on both cars in Austin – and yet it still seemed that Ferrari and Red Bull had the measure of Mercedes through practice. But a subtle shift in weather conditions between Q2 and Q3, along with a bravura performance by the champion-elect, turned the tables.

The Circuit of The Americas had basked in sunshine for much of the day but, as the clouds drew in and the wind grew gustier, the track temperature dropped from 38C to 37C between the first and second Q3 runs – not a great amount, but enough to trigger a peculiar swing in tyre performance.

“We really struggle with these tyres, they don’t feel quite right anymore”

Charles Leclerc 

While Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were among the outliers who improved in their second Q3 runs, they were naturally disappointed not to make a stronger case for the front row, having topped the timesheets through practice. After setting the fourth-quickest time, Leclerc turned the airwaves blue in a radio exchange which went unbroadcast on the world TV feed.

“We really struggle with these tyres, they don’t feel quite right anymore,” he added, having adopted a more printable form of dialogue. “Such a fine, fine window. It’s so annoying.”

After the first runs, Antonelli had provisional pole with a 1m34.035s, 0.179s quicker than Verstappen’s 1m34.214s. Hadjar’s lap was 0.215s off Antonelli. And that was how it stayed, since none of them could improve in their final runs – what was most intriguing was that those laps all went south in the final sector, where the wind gusts were providing a capricious shove from behind at the exit of Turn 13 and the entry to Turn 15.

Where Antonelli made the difference

Antonelli built what would prove to be his pole lap on two key pillars: being quicker through the sweeping section of the opening sector, and overturning what had previously been a deficit to Red Bull and Ferrari in the final sector. Mercedes made setup changes overnight from Friday into Saturday in a bid to improve the W17’s performance through Turns 12-15, its weakest area.

And yet Antonelli was still behind Verstappen through here in FP3 and the opening segments of qualifying.

Unlike so often this year, the difference came through car performance and how the drivers exploited it rather than the dreary machinations of electrical deployment. Verstappen was marginally faster through the first sweepers at the end of the opening sector, but Antonelli had the confidence in his car to be more aggressive through the tightening sequence of Turns 6-9.

Antonelli's aggression can be seen in the data traces

You can get a sense of it when comparing the onboards, in part through Antonelli’s use of a lower gear. But it’s most visible in the data, where you can see Antonelli (turquoise trace) backed out of the throttle much later than Verstappen (dark blue trace) on the approach to Turn 7, then was able to be more assertive as he got back on it before the apex. Through Turns 8 and 9 Antonelli gained nearly two tenths through being able to pick up the throttle more decisively.

Part of this, we should note, was a consequence of Max being frustrated at a lack of grip and balance on the new softs compared with the used ones he’d run in Q2. He made his frustrations clear over the radio – as with Leclerc, not all broadcast on the world feed – where he said that not only was the car bouncing “like a kangaroo” over the worst bumps at Turns 1 and 19, but that the grip and balance had gone south.

Once he’d got the RB21 straightened out, Verstappen clawed back much of those two tenths from the exit of Turn 9 through to the slow left-hander of Turn 11, then along the back straight.

But in the final sector, again, the Red Bull’s previous strength absented itself. Antonelli could pick up the throttle earlier out of Turn 12, again at Turn 13, and could back off later into Turn 15, where a tailwind gust briefly caught Max off-guard.

Verstappen enjoyed a slight speed advantage between Turns 18 and 19 but was discombobulated by the bump in the braking area, rolling off the throttle significantly earlier.

The Mercedes was again on top in the vastly different final sector

Despite being later on the throttle out of Turn 20, Max then closed the laptime delta significantly – around a tenth – during the lunge to the tape. A rare moment where we can suggest electrical deployment had a hand.

Afterwards Max was unequivocal: “I did my fastest lap in Q2 on a used set, so when I went to Q3, I had high hopes,” he said.

“But unfortunately, it just felt bad. I just didn't really have the grip that I wanted, so I couldn't lean on the rear the way I wanted in the final sector, and that just cost me too much time. And then, of course, when you look at the sheets and you're starting P2, it's nice and it's a good result, but I was hoping for more, and this was just not it.”

Certainly it’s during sessions such as these, where Verstappen is labouring with an unexpectedly recalcitrant package, that the gap to team-mate Hadjar is at its smallest. Here Isack was just 0.036s off Max and, if you were to assemble his fastest segments over the two runs, the ‘ideal lap’ with be fractionally faster than a portmanteau of Verstappen’s quickest segments.

None of the top three beat their first runs despite promising starts to the encore. Verstappen went purple in the first sector, Antonelli in the second, but then their laps just fell away in the final sector. Antonelli looked like he was caught out by gusting wind as he had to apply three separate corrections into and then out of Turn 13. Not that he was too disappointed by the outcome.

“I didn't put myself in a difficult situation [with track limits],” he said,

“And we were able to just progress throughout the session and build from there. But definitely, it was unexpected. We knew we'd be close, but, yeah, it was a good surprise.”

Will Antonelli have a thumbs up on Sunday?

Photo by: Bryn Lennon / Formula 1 via Getty Images