The 72nd Formula 1 race on American soil saw Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc getting off to a good start and reaching the first corner before his team mate, Carlos Sainz, who had been caught by surprise by a hard-charging Max Verstappen. Mercedes-AMG’s Lewis Hamilton was also displaced from his eighth starting position briefly by Alpine’s Fernando Alonso who got a good slingshot start.
Going into the first turn, Hamilton had contact with Alonso and later, the Mercedes-AMG driver reported that he felt damage at the rear. Hamilton’s team mate, George Russell, who had started in 12th position, also had a bad start and slipped down to 15th to drop behind Alfa Romeo’s GuanYu Zhou who would have to retire by the 8th lap due to a technical issue.
The two Aston Martins had started from the pitlane as the cars had ‘fuel issues’, while Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, who did not take part in qualifying due to an earlier crash, started from the back of the grid.
On lap 10, as Verstappen got within DRS range on the start-finish straight, he got past Leclerc whose car seemed to have damaged tyres. Behind Leclerc was his team mate Sainz who was pursued by the other Red Bull, Sergio Perez. 8 seconds behind the four frontrunners were two former team mates – Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas – duelling for fifth place.
On lap 12, Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda was the first driver to return to the pits to change his medium tyres for hards, rejoining at the back. He was closely followed by Haas F1’s Kevin Magnussen who also wanted to get onto hard tyres like Tsunoda. However, Verstappen seemed to be doing okay with his medium tyres. None of the top 10 cars were called in for tyre-changes.
On lap 20, Perez began to drop back noticeably and seemed to be losing power. However, his engineers could not see anything on the telemetry but he had slipped back by almost 3 seconds during the lap. Whatever it was, his gap from Sainz extended to 7 seconds. Later, the engineers would report that a sensor issue had been the cause.
Lewis Hamilton was the first of the top 10 to come in on lap 23, retaining his position as he shot back out. Two laps later, Leclerc came in, glad to finally be rid of the tyres that were making it a struggle to drive his car. When he rejoined, he was down in fourth, 27 seconds behind Verstappen in the lead and 2 seconds ahead of Bottas. After the Alfa Romeo driver was a wide gap to Russell who was some 16 seconds furtherback.
Finally, Verstappen came in for hard tyres on lap 26, losing the lead which was taken over by Sainz. And just two laps later, both Sainz and Perez came in at the same time, with the Red Bull crew getting four tyres changed in less time than the Ferrari crew (apparently there was a wheel nut problem). Verstappen was back in the lead, with a 7-second gap from Leclerc.
Russell, who had started in 12th, had done well to be up to fifth by lap 30, managing to stay keep Bottas back as Hamilton tried to close the 4-second gap. He was still on his original tyres, one of the last few drivers who had not come in. But Hamilton was not happy as the tyres were running hot with the high track temperatures.
Further down the field, Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel was also having a hard time with his tyres, and the only glimmer of hope given to him as he struggled to stay close to McLaren’s Lando Norris was that rain ‘might come in 3 minutes’. Russell too was hoping for a change in weather – or a Safety Car making an appearance.
Lap 41 provided the huge crowd with some excitement as Scuderia Alphatauri’s Pierre Gasly and Alonso made contact when the Alpine locked up going into Turn 1. Gasly was unable to avoid and fell to to 11th spot but worse, Norris was just behind and couldn’t avoid him and slid off to the side to end his race. Out came the Virtual Safety Car (VSC) – with Russell probably smiling under his helmet. The Stewards decided that Alonso was at fault and gave him a 5-seond penalty.
With the VSC activated, Russell came into the pits, along with Alpine’s Esteban Ocon who decided to take on soft tyres. Perez also made a second stop, this time to go to medium tyres again. Gasly had come in just as the VSC ended and was heard to say that he thought something had broken.
The race got underway again with 10 laps remaining of the 57-lap race. Verstappen sped off with Leclerc just behind. Their team mates were under 3 seconds behind and both also close enough to duel for the third place.
Russell was playing the dutiful No. 2 to his team mate as he kept clear of Hamilton who was aiming to get past Bottas, which he did by lap 48. That was as far as the 7-time world champion would make it as it was then a 3-second gap to Perez. One lap later, however, Russell found himself in an advantageous position after having overtaken Bottas as well and slipped ahead of Hamilton into fifth place. However, he was later told to give the place back to Hamilton as the move had been done off the track.
As the race reached its final 5 laps, the excitement was building up. Verstappen was able to keep Leclerc from passing while Sainz was managing to hold third place for Ferrari. Verstappen made no mistakes and crossed the finish line to big cheers from the Red Bull fans. Another good day for the Dutchman who is now climbing back up the championship ladder.
