Ferrari made it a one, two victory for the first time in 18 years at the United States Grand Prix in Austin. Charles Leclerc led teammate Carlos Sainz home for a dominant win at the Circuit of the Americas and were followed home by by Lando Norris who ceded the 3rd place to Max Verstappen due to a 5s track limit violation.
A big win for Ferrari and Charles Leclerc who looked competitive on Saturday but absolutely dominant on Sunday. Ferrari felt their upgrades would pay dividends and it didn’t really materialize on Saturday but manifest their improvement on Sunday. Carlos and Charles had things in hand and the undercut for Sainz put the Scuderia at the top of the podium and brings them to within 8 points of Red Bull in the Constructor’s Championship.
A win for Max Verstappen and Red Bull to hold off McLaren and Lando Norris this weekend with Max extending his lead in the Driver’s championship to 58 points. Max deflated McLaren a bit on Saturday with the Sprint win but Lando’s pole position on Sunday seemed to be a warning and in the waning laps, Lando had the pace but passed Max off track and this gave Max the final spot on the podium.
A win for Haas with Nico Hulkenberg in P8 and it may have been a dual-points finish had Kevin Magnussen not had other make a late stop in the race. Haas have pulled ahead of RB in the Constructor’s Championship this weekend.
A win for Liam Lawson who started at the back but finished in the points for RB Racing. Liam finished P9 and well ahead of his teammate, a very frustrated Yuki Tsunoda. RB made the right choice in bringing Liam in and it’s clear he is making a strong bid for Sergio Perez’s seat. Given Sergio’s performance in Austin, I may make the switch now, moving Sergio to RB, in order to try and save second in the Constructor’s Championship but I assume Sergio’s contract has some language preventing that.
A win for Franco Colapinto who also finished in the points and like Liam, Franco is given his veteran teammate a lot pf pressure.
A fail for McLaren who needed to make the most of this Sprint weekend but allowed Max and red Bull to finish ahead of them both int he Sprint and in the race. Perhaps it’s a case of the Austin circuit not being friendly to the McLaren and they can re-launch their assault of Max and Red Bull next weekend.
A fail for Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton who qualified poorly and crashed early int he race. George crashed in Quali and hustled back to P6 but he should have been fighting for P4.
A fail for Alpine who looked good early on bug Pierre Gasly got a penalty and this left both drivers out of the points and the team out of the points when it looks das if they may be able to run for P7 earlier in the race.
A fail for Sergio Perez who seemed to resign himself to run behind clearly slower back cars for most of the first half of the race. This left him a lot of work to do after the stop and he never made it toward the sharp end of the grid even with the issues Mercedes clearly had.
Not sure what’ goin on with Lewis, Alex, Esteban or Lance. All of them had such a tough weekend and in Lance’s defense, Fernando was struggling all weekend too.
At the time of writing this, I am unclear on why Kevin had to make that late pit stop but it sounded very urgent and yet it was a very quick stop.
Pirelli’s View:
Fifteen drivers opted to start on the Medium tyre, with the Sauber drivers, Bottas and Zhou going with a used set. Five others, Hamilton and Russell in the Mercedes, Stroll (Aston Martin), Colapinto (Williams) and Lawson (Racing Bulls) lined up on Hard tyres. As expected, the Soft was not considered, although Ocon (Alpine) fitted them right at the very end with the aim of depriving Colapinto in the Williams of picking up the point for the race fastest lap, a mission successfully accomplished by the Alpine driver.
The one-stop was the preferred strategy for the vast majority of drivers. Apart from the previously mentioned Ocon, only Zhou and Magnussen (Haas) made two planned stops, while Albon (Williams) had to stop in the early stages to take on a second set of Mediums.
Russell and Bottas both drove the longest stints of all, driving 40 laps on the Hard, the Englishman on his first stint, the Finn on his second. The longest run on the Medium tyre was completed by Piastri who drove 32 laps in the McLaren.
US GP Results:
|
Pos |
No |
Driver |
Car |
Laps |
Time/retired |
Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
16 |
Charles Leclerc |
Ferrari |
56 |
1:35:09.639 |
25 |
|
2 |
55 |
Carlos Sainz |
Ferrari |
56 |
+8.562s |
18 |
|
3 |
1 |
Max Verstappen |
Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT |
56 |
+19.412s |
15 |
|
4 |
4 |
Lando Norris |
McLaren Mercedes |
56 |
+20.354s |
12 |
|
5 |
81 |
Oscar Piastri |
McLaren Mercedes |
56 |
+21.921s |
10 |
|
6 |
63 |
George Russell |
Mercedes |
56 |
+56.295s |
8 |
|
7 |
11 |
Sergio Perez |
Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT |
56 |
+59.072s |
6 |
|
8 |
27 |
Nico Hulkenberg |
Haas Ferrari |
56 |
+62.957s |
4 |
|
9 |
30 |
Liam Lawson |
RB Honda RBPT |
56 |
+70.563s |
2 |
|
10 |
43 |
Franco Colapinto |
Williams Mercedes |
56 |
+71.979s |
1 |
|
11 |
20 |
Kevin Magnussen |
Haas Ferrari |
56 |
+79.782s |
0 |
|
12 |
10 |
Pierre Gasly |
Alpine Renault |
56 |
+90.558s |
0 |
|
13 |
14 |
Fernando Alonso |
Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes |
55 |
+1 lap |
0 |
|
14 |
22 |
Yuki Tsunoda |
RB Honda RBPT |
55 |
+1 lap |
0 |
|
15 |
18 |
Lance Stroll |
Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes |
55 |
+1 lap |
0 |
|
16 |
23 |
Alexander Albon |
Williams Mercedes |
55 |
+1 lap |
0 |
|
17 |
77 |
Valtteri Bottas |
Kick Sauber Ferrari |
55 |
+1 lap |
0 |
|
18 |
31 |
Esteban Ocon |
Alpine Renault |
55 |
+1 lap |
0 |
|
19 |
24 |
Zhou Guanyu |
Kick Sauber Ferrari |
55 |
+1 lap |
0 |
|
NC |
44 |
Lewis Hamilton |
Mercedes |
1 |
DNF |
0 |
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Why is maxs move on lando at the start different to landos move on max? Please dont say ‘first corner’ – maxs body of work clearly demonstrates this is intentional, not 1st turn confusion. He goes into the corner in second, doesnt brake, and spears across the corner driving the leader off the track. Because he doesnt brake, is some sliver of his car ahead at some instant? Sure. That’s not racing. Why is ‘yield or we crash’ maxs privilege alone? Because the stewards know Jos will beat him with a helmet if he doesnt? They feel bad?
I hope they go a bit ad nauseam on this point in the podcast/race review. What happened to leaving a car’s width? What happened to staying on the *bleeping* track? In my view, intentionally driving off a corner to maintain an advantage should be treated the same as cutting a corner to gain an advantage. There is no ‘Max Advantage’, but ever since he did it the first time in Austria some years ago and the FIA didn’t act, it’s now become ‘part of racing’. It needs to get solved.
Let me just say it now: Keeping Norris in front was the right call regardless of penalty. If they swapped back with Max, the McLaren didn’t have enough tire to pass him again anyways.