Kimi Antonelli signs a championship pole and Alonso nails it and takes advantage

Andrea Kimi Antonelliat 20 years old and in his second season in F1, today has his first opportunity to achieve his first F1 world title, a title with which he would also become the youngest F1 champion in history by surpassing the precocity record of Sebastian Vettelwho reigned at the age of 23 in 2010 by achieving the first of his four consecutive titles with Red Bull.

And as he said in the preview, aware that his options to achieve it the first time in Austin this weekend were not yet very clear, he wanted to forget about it, he did not want to think that he had the dream of his life to play, and he focused solely on doing the same as in the rest of the Grands Prix: attacking and going for pole and victory. And that he did.

The young driver from Bologna knew how to isolate himself from everything to make the difference at the key moment and achieve pole position. He wants to be a champion in a big way.

The Italian driver, despite the dominance of Ferrari of the whole weekend and that Verstappen Nominated as the great rival of those in red in Free Practice 3, he raised the bar in qualifying, especially when the steering wheel was burning the most: in Q3. He started that final session with the best time, with a great time that left Verstappen almost two tenths behind.

and the Ferrariwhich had not been diluted as on other occasions until then, sank just at that moment. There was a second shot left, but no one could stop the Mercedes driver, who had not achieved pole position since the Belgian GP (seven rounds earlier).

He achieved his 7th pole of the year with an advantage of 0.179 over Verstappen, who will start 2nd and with two tenths of margin on Hadjar, who will start 3rd. They will follow you Leclerc, 4th at 0”232 and Hamilton, 5th at 0”276 on another difficult day for those in red, who aspired to much more.

The accounts for the championship: need a bad day from Russell

Sixth was Russelat 0”441. And now, everyone will be watching the race to see if Verstappen He can sweep away again like in the last two games, this time having to face the one who will be the new king. It will end up being so sooner or later, although perhaps it will be today.

For this, He needs, as he said on Thursday, a “catastrophe” from his rivals. Kimi has to win and, at most, his teammate Russell is 9th and Lewis Hamilton finishes 5th. This is an unlikely trade-off because George starts 6th and Hamilton and Russell are not expected to finish there. But in F1, anything can happen.

Alonso nails it and starts 12th; Sainz, 17th

Fernando Alonso once again maximized his options. His Aston Martin allowed him to aspire to Q2 if he surpassed one of the Haas, and he achieved it. And there, he did not make mistakes like Bearman did, which by exceeding the track limits gave him another position to finish 15th. That, and the sanctions of Bortoleto, Lindblad and Colapinto gave him 12th starting place. For his part, Sainz was 19th and gained two places due to penalties to be 17th with a Williams that suffers in Austin