Qualifying for the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix capped an impressive and dramatic day in Austin.
Here’s our pick of the biggest winners and losers from Grand Prix qualifying.
Loser: Isack Hadjar (20th)
With Yuki Tsunoda still struggling and the Red Bull hierarchy unwilling to put Liam Lawson back in their top team, Hadjar would really have to waste the next few races to move away from favorite status in the fight to become Max Verstappen’s teammate in 2026.
So he can probably get away with falling heavily before even setting a lap time in the first quarter – at least in terms of the long-term driver market. This is not at all helpful for Racing Bulls in the immediate future, given that he has been the team leader all year. – Mate beer
Winner: Ferrari (3rd and 5th)
It was all about the turnaround. Ferrari’s low sprint qualifying pace suggested the weekend was set to be disappointing. And yet there is Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, both in the top five, and although both had to attack like crazy in their final laps of Q3 after missing the early runs with errors.
A repeat of Austin’s meritorious victory last year still seems like a stretch, but being in the top tier again is something. -Mo
Loser: Oscar Piastri (6th)
Perhaps even more worrying than the lack of scoring sparked by the clash in the sprint race was Piastri’s uncharacteristic lack of pace in qualifying.
Whatever setup changes were made between the sprint race and Grand Prix qualifying only reduced the three-tenths gap to Lando Norris to a gap of two and a half tenths.
“I felt like maybe my laps weren’t the best of my life, but like I did before, unfortunately the lap time didn’t come,” Piastri explained.
This confusing disconnect means he now has George Russell’s Ferraris and Mercedes between him and Norris. If he fails to erase them on Sunday, his title lead will still be seriously undermined. -Josh Suttill
Winner: Ollie Bearman (8th)
On a weekend where the rookies struggled to overcome their lack of experience at the Circuit of the Americas, Bearman entered the upgraded Haas VF-25 into Q3 and eighth on the grid.
Securing his first consecutive appearances in Q3 is even more impressive when you consider that his Haas teammate Esteban Ocon was eliminated in Q1 (also for the second consecutive race weekend).
This gives Bearman a decent chance of removing his status as the lowest-ranked 2025 full-time F1 driver in the points on Sunday. -Josh Suttill
Loser: Nico Hülkenberg (11th)
OK, starting just outside the points isn’t the end of the world.
But even though Hülkenberg once again looked head and shoulders above his teammate Gabriel Bortoleto on one lap, the Sauber did not have the same pace as the track hung up during Grand Prix qualifying as it did during Friday afternoon’s sprint session.
Proof, perhaps, that Sauber was capable of displaying a more aggressive ride height on Friday.
Whether that’s the case or not, this result currently makes this first-lap sprint exit feel like an even bigger missed opportunity. -Jack Cozens
Winner: Max Verstappen (1st)
What a day. Following the combination of the sprint victory and first-corner obliteration of the title rivals with an absolutely commanding performance in main qualifying.
Verstappen was not only fastest in all three parts of US GP qualifying, he looked destined for pole as soon as he started putting down fast laps. He had a margin of four tenths of a second for a while. It didn’t matter that traffic at the end of the lap prevented him from completing his final lap in Q3, no one beat his previous one anyway.
Momentum for Verstappen, new stumbles for McLaren. This title fight is really on. -Mo
Losers: Lance Stroll + Alex Albon (18th/19th)
Track limits strike again in Austin.
Neither of these two, to varying degrees, lived up to their teammates this weekend in Austin. It’s also true that neither of them were as adrift as their Q1 deficits suggest (Albon was 0.951 seconds behind Carlos Sainz; Stroll – we’ll get to that later – was 0.799 seconds behind Fernando Alonso).
Albon suggested that a solution on his car between the sprint and qualifying made the balance “incredibly different” – in a “good way”, he was keen to stress, but also so much so that it “just took me by surprise”.
“It was good margins and it’s an unfortunate error,” he admitted.
Nice margins indeed. Considering the other side of the two garages showed that Q3 was possible, Albon and Stroll just needed to play the percentages better. -JC
Winner: Lando Norris (2nd)
It was quite a saving. And given Piastri’s fight in Austin, that could be very important.
His opening lap in Q1 left Norris in the drop zone for years in that segment and there wasn’t really a time in qualifying where he looked like a realistic pole contender.
And yet he is second on the grid, with his closest championship rival, Piastiri, starting four places behind. Even if Verstappen is unbeatable, there is a good chance that Norris will significantly reduce the gap to Piastri on Sunday. -Mo
Loser: Yuki Tsunoda (13th)
Unlike sprint qualifying (and even that was debatable), Red Bull really had nothing to excuse with Tsunoda’s latest disappointment in qualifying: 13th, slower than Liam Lawson’s Racing Bulls, and 12 places adrift of his teammate in pole position.
And even though he blamed traffic, his lack of pace seemed to be the biggest problem.
Another first round might be needed for Tsunoda to salvage anything on Sunday. -JS
Loser: Lance Stroll (18th)
There aren’t really any positives here.
Stroll’s fastest legal time was eight tenths slower than teammate Alonso’s, and these were also in equal circumstances – Alonso didn’t bother with a second timed lap in Q1.
It has now been four times in the last five Grand Prix qualifying sessions that Alonso has reached Q3 while Stroll was eliminated in Q1. And Stroll also remains on track to become the third victim of an Alonso intra-squad qualifying whitewash (Nelson Piquet Jr and Stoffel Vandoorne were the previous two).
Yet by qualifying, 18th Stroll turned a five-place grid penalty into a two-place penalty. Every cloud and all that. -JC
