The 33-year-old sealed the 81st pole position of his career with a 1:32:237 lap at the Circuit of the Americas with rival Sebastian Vettel coming in fifth as a result of his three-place grid penalty after finishing six hundredths of a second behind the Brit.
Hamilton sealed his third consecutive pole in Austin, having won all of the last four races and six of the last seven in the States.
He has always won the US Grand Prix when starting on the front row and looks for a win tomorrow that could wrap up a fifth career world championship.
The Silver Arrows star needs to outscore Vettel by eight points to wrap up the title, meaning that if the German finishes third or lower and Hamilton wins the race the 2018 title chase will be decided with three races to spare.
Hamilton will start tomorrow evening’s showdown on supersofts having had to do a second lap on the same set having been told by his team that they were “too close to the cut-off”.
Asked whether those tyres were okay, he told Sky Sports reporter Martin Brundle: “We’ll see tomorrow but the Ferraris are obviously really quick.
“I just hope for better weather for everyone that’s in the grandstands watching and I hope it’s an exciting race tomorrow.”
On sealing pole, he added: “That was very important. That was close.
“I didn’t know how close it was going to be once we got to qualifying but obviously when we went into that last run I knew it would be quite edgy between us and it would require quite solid laps.
“The first one was not good enough and the second one was just that little bit better that enabled me to pull that out.
“I’ve had some races where I’ve not done a better time and had to bail out on the second lap so I was very, very adamant I was going to do a better second lap. So I’m really happy with that.
“The track’s been incredible. It started out very, very green and very slippery in practice 3 and once we got to qualifying it was just rubbering it so it was getting faster and faster every session.
“The wind direction, there’s a beautiful head-wind going into the s’s. The s’s is just incredible. It’s a little bit like Maggotts and Becketts.
“But also there’s such a big crowd here, we did the fans’ signing earlier and I’ve never seen the fans so hyped before!
“It was great so a big thank you to the team and everyone here.”
Vettel said: “It was pretty close. Always a bit of a shame when you miss out on that little time. I think six-hundredths, you can always debate that you had them somewhere in you.
“I was pretty happy with the laps I had. I think it was quite tricky to get everything together. Obviously it’s been dry today and better for us but I think the wind was quite tricky at times, but it was the same for everyone.
“Pretty happy given the last couple of weeks that we’ve had. Pretty happy that we’re back in range. Yeah, it seems that we are [back in form].
“Not in the wet but in the dry, it seems that we’re better off. I think today has been surprisingly close, I don’t think we expected it to be that close so it’s good.”
On the challenge ahead starting from P5, Vettel joked: “I’m used to it – I know how to do it now!”