Max Verstappen claimed a serene victory at the United States Grand Prix to reduce his championship margin to just 40 points on a quiet day for title leader Oscar Piastri.
Verstappen got the perfect launch from pole to lead the field by more than a second by the end of the first lap and wasn’t spotted again. The Dutchman led every lap of the race to complete his 15th career hat trick, putting him seven short of the record held by Michael Schumacher.
The result also puts Red Bull Racing six points behind Ferrari for third in the constructors’ championship.
“It was an unbelievable weekend for us,” he said. “If you look at the whole race, the pace between me and Lando [Norris] was really close. I think, just in our first stint, that’s where we made a difference. I could eke out a little bit of a gap, and that’s basically what we kept until the end. … Just incredibly proud of everyone to deliver a weekend like this.
“The [championship] chance is there. We just need to try and deliver these kinds of weekends until the end. We’ll try whatever we can.”
Lando Norris prevailed in a race-long battle with Charles Leclerc to pinch second place with six laps remaining. Leclerc was the only driver in the top 15 to start on the soft tire and used the compound to great effect, sweeping around Norris’s outside at the first turn to take a decisive inside line at Turn 2. His soft tires helped keep him ahead early, but from lap 15 Norris was able to use his more durable mediums to close the gap and ramp up the pressure.
They sparred spectacularly through the third sector on that lap and again on lap 19, but by lap 21 the difference in tire life was overwhelming and Norris used DRS to sweep past long before the braking zone of turn 12. Ferrari responded by pitting Leclerc at the end of the following lap, switching him to the medium tire for a long 34-lap final stint.
With the hard tire uncompetitive, Norris had to hold his nerve until lap 32, giving him a no less daunting 24-lap stint on softs. He rejoined the race 4.3s behind Leclerc and rapidly eliminated the gap, but it took only a handful of laps in the Ferrari’s dirty air for his tires to wilt, and by lap 40 he radioed that his assault on the place was over.
It was only deferred, however, and with seven laps remaining Norris picked up the pace to reattach to the Ferrari’s gearbox. On lap 51 he lunged for the place down the inside of the first turn, and though Leclerc cut back to hold the place, the gap between them was reduced to nothing as they approached the back straight. A strong exit from Turn 11 got Norris down Leclerc’s inside into Turn 12, where he stripped the Ferrari of the place to restore himself to second position.
It meant he did close to maximum damage to teammate and title leader Piastri, whose poor weekend left him an ineffectual fifth. Norris shrank his title disadvantage to 14 points, and he now leads Verstappen by only 26 points.
“It took long enough!” he said. “I expected a slightly easier second attempt to get through, but it wasn’t the case. Charles drove a very good race. It was good fun, a good battle. … I have to take second; not a lot more we could’ve done today.”
Leclerc’s near miss still returned Ferrari to the podium for the first time since July’s Belgian Grand Prix. It also moved Ferrari to within seven points of Mercedes in second in the constructors’ championship.
“I’m very happy overall,” he said. “It’s been a tough second part of the year. To be back on the podium here after what was a difficult FP1 with a gearbox problem, we recovered well, so I’m happy.”
Lewis Hamilton finished a distant fourth, the Briton on a more conventional medium-soft strategy, in a lonely race whose only highlight was a brief battle with Leclerc before the pit stops and a suspected puncture on the final lap that left him exposed to Piastri behind him in the final corners.
Piastri had a good start from sixth to jump George Russell off the line but couldn’t keep in touch of the top four in the first stint. His race became a defensive one, stopping earlier to prevent an undercut from Russell, and though the Mercedes driver closed in the final laps, the Australian held the position to limit the damage to his championship lead.
Russell headed Yuki Tsunoda, who rose six places on his starting position for his second scoring finish in the last three grands prix. Nico Hulkenberg scored points for the first time since his maiden podium in Silverstone in July for eighth, finishing ahead of Oliver Bearman and Fernando Alonso in the final points-paying places.
Liam Lawson was the first finisher outside the points in a race that featured little action owing to the extensive tire management required to use the soft compound. The Kiwi headed Lance Stroll, Kimi Antonelli – who was punted off the road by a clumsy Carlos Sainz, dropping him to the back of the pack – Alex Albon, Esteban Ocon and Isack Hadjar.
