Norris had taken provisional pole with an improbably perfect lap, beating Verstappen 0.031 seconds to snap a weekend of underperformance for McLaren.
It was a flipping of a script for an easy Verstappen pole position, the Dutchman having comfortably topped the first two qualifying segments after winning the sprint race earlier in the day from first on the grid.
There was time left on the table, and Verstappen started his final flying lap in imperious fashion, finding 0.172 seconds on Norris in the first sector alone as the McLaren driver struggled to improve.
But he couldn’t complete his lap thanks to Russell spinning off the road at turn 19, crashing heavily into the barriers to end the session under double waved yellow flags.
It gifted Norris an unlikely pole position, his fifth in seven grands prix, and a chance to make further gains on Verstappen’s 54-point championship lead.
“We’ve been on the back foot pretty much all weekend,” he said. “I had to do something, and today I did that.
“I put everything out on the line. It’s what we needed to do. A cool lap and a nice way to start the race tomorrow.”
Verstappen was frustrated not to have been able to take pole but was confident his upgraded RB20 could complete the job in the race today.
“Unfortunately I couldn’t finish the lap, otherwise we had a really good shot,” he said.
“We’re on the front row at least and we had the potential to be first, so that’s very good.
“It seemed that we were competitive, so we made some minor changes on the car, which felt again nice. I hope that will also be positive for tomorrow.”
Carlos Sainz, having finished second in the morning’s sprint, was an outside contender for pole, having been marginally up on Norris at the end of the first sector and fractionally behind at the second, but the Spaniard was pleased with Ferrari’s improvements since Friday and considered himself a victory contender.
“Yesterday we were P5 [in sprint qualifying], today we are P3, so we’ve done a good step in the right direction,” he said.
“I think we’ve done some good progress. We should be in the fight tomorrow.”
His teammate, Charles Leclerc, will line up alongside him on the second row of the grid, with Oscar Piastri following in the second McLaren in fifth and the smashed Russell in sixth.
Russell’s crash compounded a woeful day for Mercedes, which had started the day expecting to be a pole and victory contender with its upgraded car but left the track with one car in the barriers and Lewis Hamilton eliminated from Q1 in 19th.
Hamilton, who had never previously qualified lower than fifth in Austin, made one big mistake at turn 12 at the end of the back straight, sailing wide and losing half a second to the frontrunners that condemned him to his worst ever qualifying result at this circuit.
Pierre Gasly was excellent for Alpine in seventh ahead of Fernando Alonso in eighth and Kevin Magnussen in ninth.
Sergio Pérez qualified 10th with a time after his first lap was deleted for exceeding track limits, though that time would have been good enough for eighth, being almost a second slower than teammate Verstappen.
Yuki Tsunoda will start 11th ahead of Nico Hülkenberg, Esteban Ocon and Lance Stroll, the last three of which were all comfortably beaten by their Q3-bound teammates.
Liam Lawson, who has replaced Daniel Ricciardo for the rest of the season at RB, was 15th without a time in Q3, having carried a back-of-gird engine penalty into his first weekend as a full-time racing driver.
The Kiwi’s demotion promoted Thai driver Alex Albon and teammate Franco Colapinto to 15th and 16th on the grid ahead of Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas.
Hamilton’s shock elimination will see him start 18th after a mistake at turn 12 at the end of the back straight sent him sailing wide, costing him half a second and his worst ever qualifying result at the Circuit of the Americas.
Zhou Guanyu will line up 19th in the second Sauber ahead of the penalised Lawson.