Antonelli takes pole at US Grand Prix, eyes championship lead

Kimi Antonelli claimed pole position for the United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas, posting a lap of 1 minute 34.035 seconds to finish ahead of Red Bull driver Max Verstappen. The Italian driver, who leads the championship by 102 points over his Mercedes teammate George Russell, will need to win the race and rely on his rivals finishing lower to clinch his first world title this weekend.

Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar completed the top three, while Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton rounded out the top five. Russell qualified sixth, four tenths slower than Antonelli.

“We got pole, so we’ll try to win tomorrow,” Antonelli said. “Max has been very quick and did an incredible job in qualifying so it’s not going to be easy. Hopefully we’ll be leading into turn one and we’ll try to set the pace, even though it’s going to be very tight.”

Mercedes engineers noted that recent upgrades, introduced in Malaysia, had begun to deliver performance gains after earlier setbacks in Malaysia and Singapore. Antonelli’s engineer, Pete Bonnington, described the pole as an unexpected but welcome result.

“It was unexpected, we felt it would be close but it was a good surprise,” Bonnington said.

The pole marks Antonelli’s seventh of the season and the first for Mercedes at Austin since Valtteri Bottas in 2019. With the championship lead narrowing only if his rivals finish strongly, Antonelli’s performance positions him as a strong contender for the title at the upcoming race.