F1 United States Grand Prix: Sprint qualifying as it happened

That marks an end to our live coverage today, but join us again tomorrow for the Sprint race, which takes place at 7pm BST. 

Max Verstappen was the man to beat in sprint qualifying as he pipped George Russell to pole by just 0.012s.

It was a tight session at the Circuit of the Americas with 0.2s between the top five drivers in sprint qualifying.

The two Mercedes drivers were the first drivers out in SQ3, with Russell taking provisional pole.

Lewis Hamilton was on course to beat it after a blistering S1, but made a mistake into Turn 12.

After that, no one was able to topple Russell’s top time, until Verstappen was able to do so.

The Dutchman will be looking to add yet another sprint victory to his CV on Saturday.

Read our full report here. 

2024 F1 United States Grand Prix - Sprint Qualifying Results

"Come on guys... that was not good," Hamilton says over team radio. 

The seven-time world champion appears to be unhappy with Mercedes for the timing of his run. 

It's a strong opening lap from Russell who sets the early benchmark with a 1m32.845s. 

Hamilton crosses the line and is half a second down on his Mercedes teammate with the Silver Arrows duo going out earlier than their rivals. 

Colapinto, meanwhile, spins his Williams down at Turn 15 and ruins his lap. 

We are underway in SQ3. Who will come out on top in the battle for pole position? 

Sainz pipped Verstappen to the fastest time in SQ2. 

Verstappen puts his Red Bull second, just 0.016s behind Sainz. 

Red Bull teammate Perez is only 10th, nearly a full second off the pace and the slowest of the drivers to have completed a lap so far. 

In the early exchanges of SQ2, its Sainz who leads the way for Ferrari. 

He heads Hamilton with the fastest time so far, with teammate Leclerc in third and the second Mercedes of Russell in fourth. 

McLaren's Norris is only fifth-quickest on his first run. 

Cars are heading back out on track for the second part of sprint qualifying. 

On his second timed lap, Perez moves himself into the top-10 and goes seventh.

That should be good enough to see him safely progress.

Perez is under massive pressure to advance into SQ2 after seeing his first lap of SQ1 deleted for track limits. 

That leaves the Red Bull driver without a lap time and down in 20th...

Hamilton is fastest after the opening runs of SQ1. He pips Ferrari's Leclerc, McLaren's Norris and Sainz in the other Ferrari as Mercedes teammate Russell slots into fifth. 

Speaking about Red Bull's ride-height device for the first time, team principal Christian Horner told Sky Sports: "Every car has a tool that they can adjust what we call the front of the floor, being the bib, and ours is located at the front in front of the footwell. It has been there I think for over three years.

"You've got to have the pedals out, other panels and pipework out in order to get to it. So it's like any other adjustment on the car, it would be easier to adjust a rear roll bar than it is to get to that component.

"It's all part of the packaging in the front end of the chassis."

Horner added: "We have cameras watching the cars, we have scrutineers watching the cars. Our car has come under more scrutiny in the last three years than any other car in the pit lane. So we're totally comfortable."

During the break of on-track action, the saga surrounding Red Bull's controversial ride height device rumbled on. 

During Friday's FIA team representatives press conference, McLaren CEO Zak Brown continued to sling mud at Red Bull. 

“They’ve decided to put a seal on it and at the same time have heard from the team that you can’t adjust it when the car is fully race prepped," Brown said. "The car is not always fully race prepped in parc ferme and on Sunday morning, so I think that needs to be unpicked.

“Why do you need to put a seal on something that you can’t get to in parc ferme or post-parc ferme conditions? So I still have questions that I need to better understand.”

Who's ready for some qualifying action?

We've got Sprint Qualifying coming up in just under half an hour which will set the grid for Saturday's sprint race in Austin.

It marks the first sprint event since Austria all the way back in July.

Carlos Sainz headed the timesheets in the only F1 practice session of the weekend at the United States Grand Prix.

With the sprint format returning for this weekend at the Circuit of the Americas, the teams had just 60 minutes of running to get their setups fine-tuned ahead of sprint qualifying later today.

Ferrari looked comfortable right from the off with Sainz and Charles Leclerc setting strong times on the harder rubber.

While Max Verstappen led the way heading into the final 20 minutes, after setting his soft lap early, it was eclipsed by Sainz, ultimately by 0.253s.

You can read our full report here 

1. Sainz 
2. Leclerc
3. Verstappen
4. Norris 
5. Piastri 
6. Hamilton 
7. Russell
8. Magnussen 
9. Alonso
10. Tsunoda

Full Friday practice results 

The chequered flag is waved and that concludes the only hour of practice this weekend. 

Sainz ends up heading a Ferrari 1-2 ahead of teammate Leclerc. 

Verstappen is third, ahead of the McLaren's of Norris and Piastri, and Hamilton's Mercedes. 

Sainz topples Verstappen with a 1m33.602s to go quickest of all and 0.253s clear of the field. 

Alonso slots into third, ahead of Hamilton, Gasly, Lawson and Albon. 

It's softs galore in the closing stages of FP1. Expect plenty of changes in the final minutes...

Zhou has just returned to the pits reporting he has "lost power" in his Sauber. He remains 19th in the FP1 order. 

Perez completes another soft tyre run and improves to jump ahead of Sainz. However, he is still 0.783s adrift of teammate Verstappen's benchmark. 

The other frontrunners are yet to come out on a set of soft tyres.