00:12Only 18th fastest for Kimi, he's knocked out in Q1 once again.
00:16Next to cross the line, Charles Leclerc, I told you how pace, he's gone fastest overall by two tenths to Max Verstappen.
00:22Don't discount Leclerc out of the final shake-up here.
00:24Latifi goes out of the bottom five, but only just. Esteban Ocon might be able to replace Latifi and Leapfrog the Williams.
00:32One more corner to go. Has he got pace to get himself out of the bottom five?
00:37Crosses the line, he does. Pushes Latifi back down into that bottom five. He's 13th.
00:42Next to cross the line, Fernando Alonso pushes Lance Stroll down into the bottom five.
00:47Giovinazzi very much at risk. Sebastian Vettel will be next to cross the line.
00:50Nikita Mazepin needs to get a time on the board, and Mick Schumacher's trying hard too.
00:54Vettel goes 10th fastest. Next we look to see Mazepin crossing the line stays slowest of all the 20 drivers.
01:02Mick Schumacher next to cross the line. Can he go any faster? No, he can't.
01:06Only 19th fastest for Mick Schumacher. And looking at Lance Stroll, no, he's out of qualifying.
01:11Along with Latifi, Raikkonen, Schumacher and Mazepin. Antonio Giovinazzi just ruining a little mistake that he made at the top of the hill.
01:20Coming down, he was out for a spin, but he's through into the second part of qualifying.
01:25Ricciardo around the final corner, he comes now. Be the first time on the board for him in this session.
01:32Only 9th fastest. Pushes Yuki Tsunoda down into 11th. Tsunoda was in Q3 in Turkey for the first time in eight races.
01:39He's got to go faster now. Giovinazzi is out. Only 12th fastest for him.
01:43Fernando Alonso, he's going to go to the back of the grid, but he'd like to get into the top ten if he can.
01:47And he will cross the line now. Only 13th fastest with his teammate Esteban Ocon, 10th.
01:53Tsunoda has the chance then to knock the other Alpine out of Q3, and that looked nice.
02:00Coming round, turn 19. One more corner to go, sunk very much in the driver's eyes as they turn left-handed and crosses the line.
02:07Goes ahead of Esteban Ocon, and for the second race running so far, Yuki Tsunoda is into Q3, but can Sebastian Fettel or George Russell do something about that?
02:15Big sigh of relief for Ricciardo with the drivers out there on the red mark, soft tyres.
02:20He's still up in P9. Really his main concern behind him now, as you point out, is Sebastian Fettel.
02:27But it looks like Ricciardo should get through to the shootout, and does.
02:31Sebastian Fettel, 12th fastest, two-time former pole-sitter here at the Circuit of the Americas.
02:36Only 12th on the grid. Not the best day for Aston Martin with strolled in the bottom five in Q1, and George Russell goes 13th fastest.
02:43Both him and Sebastian Fettel will be going to the back of the grid with Fernando Alonso.
02:48And Russell's 35.73 is going to be deleted. He drops down to 15th with no time.
02:56And now he'll just swing through here. Line of least resistance. Cascade down that hill one more time. Into 19.
03:06Throw the nose in. He's got plenty of space in hand there on track limits. Turn in late for the final corner.
03:12Front drifting a little bit wide again. Stay right. You're quickly towards the line at 33.5 on the soft. That is not especially quick.
03:21His teammate Valtteri Bottas was about a tenth away and crosses the line through the second sector.
03:27Crosses the line and nearly a tenth of a second up. Bottas, who was on pole last time he came here to Austin, has provisional pole at the moment.
03:34Lando Norris goes third fastest as he crosses the line, as Carlos Sainz goes third fastest.
03:39And he's still got time to do something about it, Verstappen, in the final sector.
03:43Ricciardo is ahead of Norris, Gasly ahead of Sonoda. Leclerc, behind his teammate, goes fourth fastest.
03:49Verstappen crosses the line and by nearly three tenths of a second, Verstappen, you can hear the cheers.
03:55And certainly from the big Red Bull grandstand at the top of turn one, goes on provisional pole.
04:00But guess what? His teammate Sergio Perez gets an even bigger round of applause to snatch provisional pole from Max by nearly two hundredths of a second.
04:09That wasn't in the playbook, surely. Great, great lap. Perez has been on it since the get-go here, hasn't he?
04:16He's just, he's in the groove, he's dialled in and how about that?
04:22Perez, the man on provisional pole, starting his final lap right now. Very good middle sector. Yeah.
04:28For Lewis Hamilton. Oh, and then the car still moving around a little bit there.
04:32He takes a slightly wider line through 16, 17 and 18 that's coming up, does Lewis Hamilton.
04:39Then Max Verstappen, Max already cuts this fine, this corner, maybe nips the car up a little bit.
04:44But Hamilton then has found good time in the middle sector.
04:47Bottas will cross the line now, stays third fastest.
04:52Lewis Hamilton to cross the line to try and get provisional pole back again.
04:56And he does so by six one hundredths of a second. Hamilton gets the cheers from the crowd now.
05:01He's on provisional pole, but Verstappen has absolutely aced the first sector.
05:06This is not over yet. And Perez, only a few hundredths of his teammates as he currently is on the front row.
05:13Norris goes sixth fastest. And rain in the pit lane we're hearing. Just gentle rain, the beginning of it in the pit lane.
05:19So it should be okay to finish the lap in the dry unless the wind blows those clouds over to where we are now.
05:27Another good middle sector for Verstappen. He's right on the pace.
05:30Yeah, a little bit wide though through 14 there, but let's see what he's got. Let's see if he gets any rain on his visor through these last few corners.
05:38This is the tighter line he takes. This is going to be so close.
05:41Leclerc goes ahead of his teammate Carlos Sainz. Ricciardo has out-qualified Lando Norris. Gasly ahead of Tsunoda who's tenth.
05:48Now Verstappen has seven poles in the last ten races. Verstappen's back on provisional pole here in Austin.
05:55We're into the 1.32s with Red Bull. Can Perez get pole? Oh, he can't get pole. It was there for him, but Verstappen has snatched that pole position out of Sergio Perez's hands.
06:08And Red Bull had a front row lockout, now a one and three, because the two championship protagonists, Verstappen and Hamilton, for the seventh time this season, lock out the front row between them.
06:19And that is why they are the championship protagonists. When they need to, they can pull out something a bit special, find that quarter of a second and not throw it off the road.
