Verstappen rallies from sixth-place start to take victory in Austin as Red Bull nail tire strategy; Hamilton makes late pass on Norris for P2 but later DQ’d for technical infraction along with P5 Leclerc

Anyone expecting Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to back off the throttle and let someone else have a go after claiming his third consecutive Formula 1 title on a Sprint Saturday in Qatar two weeks ago clearly doesn’t understand the nature of the hyper-competitive flying Dutchman. After once again dominating a rather procedural Saturday Sprint race here at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, Verstappen overcame some niggling brake issues and a P6 start to ride his RB19’s superior performance and a savvy tire strategy from his pit wall to the win at the United States Grand Prix on Sunday. It was his fiftieth career F1 win and staggering thirteenth victory on the season out of eighteen races run. Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton also had a strong race, capitalizing on running longer tire stints than his nearest competitors and then passing McLaren’s Lando Norris for P2 late in the race on fresher Pirellis. But Hamilton’s Silver Arrow was later disqualified from that result due to technical infractions on the floor discovered in post-race scrutineering. FIA also discovered similar infractions on Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari and excluded him from the GP, as well, after the Monegasque had come home P5. So, the third place Norris, who Hamilton passed on Lap 49 of this 56-lap contest was promoted to P2 and Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz was elevated to the podium in P3.

Max gets the better of Charles but not without a fight! 🍿

Catch up with all the best action from a pulsating race in Austin 🎥#F1 #USGP

— Formula 1 (@F1) October 22, 2023

While Leclerc started from pole thanks to a solid lap in Friday qualifying and also Versteppen’s best time being deleted for a track limits infraction, it was clear right away that Ferrari were skittish about managing their tire stints for the expected two-stop strategy. With all the top contenders starting on Medium Pirellis, it was the P2 Norris who got away better than Leclerc when the lights went out, passing the lead Ferrari going up the iconic hill into Turn 1. Norris quickly danced away leaving Lecerc to play defense against the oncoming Silver Arrow of Hamilton, who lined up in P3 on the grid but was overtaken early by the second Prancing Horse of Carlos Sainz. But by Lap 4, Hamilton regained the position against the Spaniard and on Lap 6, he got by Lecerc to secure P2. With the Ferrari looking quite tentative in race trim, Leclerc next found himself under pressure from Vertstappen, who had already worked his way up to P4 from his sixth place start. After some wheel-to-wheel dicing, Verstappen overtook the defenseless Monegasque for P3 on Lap 11.

The reigning Champion then pitted on Lap 17 for new tires, with the team choosing to bolt on another set of Medium compound tires. This meant that Verstappen would definitely have to pit again to run the Hards, but the team had wisely figured out that everyone was going to have make two stops and they would rather Max get the performance out of the Mediums in the middle stint and then run the Hards while on a lighter fuel load to finish out the race. Norris pitted a lap later for his first stop and the more conventional switch from Mediums to Hards, with Hamilton matching that strategy but running all the way to Lap 21 before the change.  Mercedes teammate George Russell, who had a poor start and fell from P5 back to P8 at one point, pitted a lap later and once Leclerc made his stop on lap 24 it was Norris at the point, Verstappen in P2 and Hamilton in P3. Making the most of the one-lap undercut that his pit wall had executed, as well as fresh Medium tires against Norris’s harder to switch on Hards, Verstappen quickly advanced to the Briton’s gearbox within DRS range and then made the pass for the race lead on Lap 28.

The top three held station until the next round of pit stops, Norris being the first to make the move on Lap 35 for a fresh set of Hards, while Verstappen followed him in a lap later to run the mandatory second compound of Hard tires after doffing his rapidly fading Mediums. Verstappen still came out ahead of Norris after all that was said and done, while Hamilton once again ran a longer stint and boxed from the lead on Lap 38. On the subsequent lap, Verstappen dusted off Leclerc’s Ferrari for the race lead a second time, with Norris doing the same on Lap 39. Hamilton also forced his way past Leclerc with twelve laps remaining and set about hunting down the second place McLaren of Norris, who was unable to match Verstappen’s pace at the front. On Lap 49 Hamilton managed the overtake, relegating Norris to P3, at least until the stewards had their say about Hamilton’s dodgy legality plank post-race. Although he tried to shrug it off, the DQ was quite costly to Hamilton, as the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez was elevated to P4 after Leclerc was also excluded, scoring 12 points to Hamilton’s zero, and enabling the Mexican veteran to extend his P2 lead in the Drivers’ standings by 39 points. It was good recovery drive by Checo after another lackluster qualifying found him starting down in P9

The second Merc of George Russell was promoted to P5 after a rather up and down race. Russell will need to work on consistency within the races and also better starts because his true finishing position was really P7 despite starting P5. The lone surviving Alpine of Pierre Gasly did well to finish in P6, while Lance Stroll was the only Aston to finish in the points in P7, a much needed boost for the beleaguered Canadian. Alpha Tauri’s Yuki Tsunoda claimed P8 and both Williams broke through into the points for the first time this year, with Alexander Albon taking P9 and Logan Sergeant grabbing his first career F1 point in P10. After the exhilarating high of a P2 podium in Qatar a fortnight ago, Norris’s McLaren teammate Oliver Piastri DNF’d on Lap 10 due to damage sustained when he and Esteban Ocon’s Alpine collided on the opening lap, which also ended Ocon’s race prematurely on Lap 6.

Top 10 finishers of the United States GP (adjusted for Hamilton & Leclerc’s DQs):

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in but a week’s time, as the teams head south of the border on a short trip to the Mexico City Grand Prix. The high altitude at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez always takes some getting used to for both cars and drivers and with McLaren and Mercedes steadily closing the pace advantage to Red Bull, this could be an opportunity for one of those teams to lay down a marker for next year. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!