Hamilton beats Rosberg to pole position in Austin

An impressive final lap of 1:34.999 saw Hamilton secure a potentially crucial pole position as he looks to reduce Rosberg's 33-point lead in the drivers' championship. Rosberg provisionally took pole on his final lap but Hamilton excelled in the high-speed first sector to secure the 58th pole position of his career.

Hamilton struck first in Q3 as he beat Rosberg by 0.072s on the first runs, with Mercedes enjoying an advantage of half a second over the rest of the field. Red Bull posed the biggest threat and Daniel Ricciardo took third on the grid but was just over 0.3s adrift of Rosberg and unable to split the Mercedes pair.

Max Verstappen will start alongside Ricciardo in fourth place ahead of the Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel. The two Ferrari drivers struggled to stay in contention with those ahead, ending the session over a second slower than Hamilton and with Nico Hulkenberg close behind. Valtteri Bottas, Felipe Massa and Carlos Sainz round out the top ten.

Tyre tactics came into play during the second part of qualifying, with the two Mercedes drivers opting to progress on the soft compound tyre in order to start the race on the softs on Sunday. Verstappen matched that choice, while Ricciardo used the supersofts and set the fastest time of the session.

The main fight was for the final few spots in the top ten and Sainz pulled out an excellent lap to set the eighth quickest time ahead of the two Williams drivers. It was a lap which ultimately eliminated Sergio Perez as Massa completed just one run and snuck through ahead of the Force India in tenth place.

Fernando Alonso will start from 12th alongside Perez - who will get the bonus of choosing which tyres he starts on having not qualified in the top ten - while Daniil Kvyat and Esteban Gutierrez also dropped out in Q2 ahead of Jolyon Palmer and Marcus Ericsson.

The end of Q1 saw a lot of traffic causing headaches for some drivers, with Jenson Button in particular struggling. Button encountered a number of cars in the final sector, with Palmer’s Renault right on the racing line as he approached the final corner. In fairness to Palmer, he took to the kerb on the outside of the track to give Button as much space as possible, taking to team radio to complain about not being told the McLaren was approaching.

Button was attempting to improve after a poor first lap and only briefly jumped out of the bottom six before he was bumped down again, with Palmer progressing as Romain Grosjean failed with his final lap and was eliminated in 17th place. Kevin Magnussen split the Haas and McLaren, while Pascal Wehrlein was just 0.2s slower than Button in 20th place, beating Felipe Nasr and Manor team-mate Esteban Ocon.