Lewis Hamilton was beaten to pole position by his Mercedes team-mate, Nico Rosberg, in qualifying for Sunday’s United States Grand Prix. It was Rosberg’s ninth pole of the season and the 13th of his career and the sixth successive race weekend that Mercedes had locked out the front row as their dominance continued.
Rosberg is attempting to break a sequence of four wins by Hamilton, who had won pole three times out of four before Austin. But the German leads Hamilton 10-7 in qualifying this season and his 1min 36.067sec was quickest by 0.376.
“It was a great day, I’m very happy,” he said. “It worked out really well. Together with my engineers, I arrived in qualifying with a car that I was really happy with.
“This morning, the conditions were quite different so it wasn’t easy to get everything right. First place today is awesome but the race is what counts, so I need to fully focus on tomorrow and try and bring it home. Of course the start is going to be important, I need to make the most of that and stay ahead.”
Hamilton was quickest in practice and in Q1 but had problems when it got really important. “I struggled with my braking,” he said. “But Nico was too quick.” It is six years ago this weekend that Hamilton won his solitary world championship.
Behind the Mercedes team in qualifying were the Williams pair of Valtteri Bottas – the sixth time in eight races that he has made the top three – and Felipe Massa. They were followed in by Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo and Fernando Alonso for Ferrari.
