AUSTIN, Texas -- Kimi Antonelli declared "it's good to be back" as he inched ever closer to his first Formula 1 world championship with an overdue pole position at the United States Grand Prix.
Antonelli, who must win on Sunday to have any chance of wrapping up the title in Austin, stormed 0.179 seconds clear of Red Bull's Max Verstappen.
It was his first pole position since July's Belgian Grand Prix.
Mercedes teammate George Russell could only qualify sixth, behind Lewis Hamilton in fifth.
Should Antonelli win the race, he will be champion if Hamilton is fifth or lower and Russell is ninth or lower.
"Yes man! It's good to be back," Antonelli said to race engineer Peter Bonnington on the radio after the session.
Speaking afterwards, Antonelli said he expects a tough challenge from Verstappen.
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Antonelli said: "Yeah, I mean, we've got pole, so we'll try to win tomorrow. But Max has been very quick, and also, Isack did an incredible job in qualifying.
"It's not going to be easy, but we'll try to get a good start, and then hopefully we'll lead into Turn 1, and then we'll try to set the pace, even though it's going to be very tight. But very happy with the qualifying today. Q3 was very tough with the wind, very gusty, unpredictable, but happy that we stuck it on pole."
Russell, who did not improve on his final run in Q3, told Sky Sports: "Qualifying was looking OK to be honest until we got to Q3.
"In all honestly, I just did two bad laps and that's why we were where we were. Kimi did a great job.
"I think I could have been in the top three. My Q2 lap was two and a half tenths quicker than what I achieved in Q3 but that obviously isn't good enough from my side."