US Grand Prix: Max Verstappen beats Lando Norris to pole for sprint race in Austin

Piastri has looked to be in a difficult position compared to Norris since the start of practice and was well behind the Briton in all three qualifying sessions.

Norris said: “I’m disappointed not to be on pole but it’s no surprise that we’ve been a bit slower than Red Bull lately.

“I could have improved at some points here and there and caught some bumps a little wrong, that’s the difficulty of this track. Otherwise, everything is fine.”

Piastri said: “It was quite a messy lap. I just couldn’t get it together. In some ways I feel a bit lucky to be third. The pace in the car is good. It’s nothing major, just a bit of a messy lap and hopefully I can fix that tomorrow.”

The Sprint offers eight points to the winner and one point to eighth place.

The standout performance in qualifying came from Hulkenberg, who entered the top 10 for the first time all year and delivered his best Sauber performance of the season.

At the beginning of August, they were seventh in the standings behind teammate Gabriel Bortoleto in Hungary.

“As you can imagine, I am satisfied, happy,” said the German. “Place 1 seemed too good to be true. We weren’t sure if it was the real deal, but we managed to continue that trend. Hopefully we can hold on to it this weekend.”

“The speed was just there. The car looked fast and it was in a good time frame, it hit the right spot, I guess that’s it.”