Championship leader Lando Norris continued his momentum in the closing stages of the 2025 Formula 1 season by taking pole position for the Las Vegas Grand Prix in a wet qualifying session.
The McLarens ending up 19th and 20th in FP3 appeared a deceptive result, but even so the rain that returned between final practice and qualifying appeared transformative to the team's prospects - particularly after the switch to intermediate tyres for the final part of qualifying.
Norris and team-mate Piastri traded fastest times in the middle part of Q3, but Norris appeared to have an edge as the track evolved and he rammed home that advantage with his final lap.
Max Verstappen had gone fastest at that point, but Norris was nearly a second up through the first and second sectors - and even with a slower final sector where he had a moment and lifted, he still ended up 0.323s clear as he swept to a third pole position in a row.
Red Bull driver Verstappen held onto second, saying his RB21 felt more competitive on the extreme wet tyre that was used almost exclusively in Q1 and Q2.
Carlos Sainz ended up an excellent third for Williams but is under investigation for rejoining unsafely in front of Lance Stroll in Q1. Replays of that incident showed Stroll having to take a compromised line through the Turn 5 right-hander as Sainz rejoined while the Aston Martin driver was on a fast lap.
George Russell had been fastest in both Q1 and Q2 but ended up almost nine tenths off Norris's pole time in fourth for Mercedes, reporting after Q3 that he'd experienced a power steering issue.
His Mercedes team has been summoned to see the stewards after failing to submit its set-up sheets for either Russell's or team-mate Kimi Antonelli's cars prior to the start of qualifying.
Piastri was only fifth after failing to get a final lap in.
He backed off to respect a yellow flag through Turn 12 on his final lap - Charles Leclerc had gone off and rejoined not long before that in his Ferrari - but the McLaren driver was shown going side-by-side into the corner with Isack Hadjar's Racing Bulls car, with Piastri then taking to the runoff.
He is due to share the third row with the other Racing Bulls of Liam Lawson.
Aston Martin's challenge fades
The full wet tyre, so often an unfavourable choice for F1 teams, proved to be the tyre to have in Q1 and Q2 - with Aston Martin the trendsetter in that department as it was the first to send both cars out at the start of Q1 on that tyre.
Both Stroll and Fernando Alonso appeared to reap the benefits of that choice and Stroll in particular looked fast on the tyre, but a switch to the intermediate tyre at the end of Q2 backfired - as Stroll ran out of laps to get the tyre up to temperature and improve his time.
That consigned him to 12th and another qualifying defeat to Alonso. He did at least take seventh ahead of Hadjar, Leclerc and Pierre Gasly's Alpine, but Aston Martin was another team that appeared to be hurt by the swing towards intermediate conditions.
Hamilton's disaster
There were three big scalps in Q1, with Antonelli, Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull) and Lewis Hamilton all eliminated. But of those three it was Hamilton's exit that was easily the most calamitous.
He crossed the line just about in time before the chequered flag was shown to set a final lap and was instructed to push by Ferrari, but had backed off already by that point after seeing "the red" light denoting the end of the session soon after crossing the start/finish line.
Hamilton had also collected a bollard at the start of the Turn 14-16 complex, which became lodged under his front wing.
Alex Albon hit the wall on his final lap in Q1 and broke his front-right suspension, but was already out by that point in 16th. He and Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto (18th) were the other drivers eliminated in the first part of qualifying.
Results
1 Lando Norris (McLaren)
2 Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
3 Carlos Sainz (Williams)
4 George Russell (Mercedes)
5 Oscar Piastri (McLaren)
6 Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls)
7 Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin)
8 Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls)
9 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)
10 Pierre Gasly (Alpine)
11 Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber)
12 Lance Stroll (Aston Martin)
13 Esteban Ocon (Haas)
14 Ollie Bearman (Haas)
15 Franco Colapinto (Alpine)
16 Alex Albon (Williams)
17 Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes)
18 Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber)
19 Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull)
20 Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari)
