Ferrari brought themselves back into the F1 title fight this weekend after finishing 1-2 in the USA at Circuit of the Americas for the F1 US grand prix. After championship leader Max Verstappen won the sprint race early in the weekend Lando Norris claimed pole for the grand prix. Norris led until the first round of pits stop but it was a superior strategy and better tire management from Ferrari that saw the Scuderia to victory.
Charles Leclerc Returns to the Top
Race winner Charles Leclerc said, It feels good to bring home a victory at the start of this triple header. The whole team did an amazing job to make this happen and a 1-2 brings us a good amount of points in the fight for the Constructors’ title. It’s an optimistic target, but we will never stop dreaming until it is done.It feels good to bring home a victory at the start of this triple header. The whole team did an amazing job to make this happen and a 1-2 brings us a good amount of points in the fight for the Constructors’ title.
It’s an optimistic target, but we will never stop dreaming until it is done. I had a good start, leveraging the fact that Max (Verstappen) pushed hard into turn 1, and Lando (Norris) defended from him. I lined up my exit and overtook both of them. After that, I knew it would be a matter of taking good care of my tires and just bringing it home. Our pace was really strong from the first lap onwards and I felt that I could pull away from Max quite comfortably. We’ve made a really good step in terms of our race trim, and hopefully, we will keep it up in the next few races. We will do everything to maximize our results and at the end of the year, we will do the math and see where we stand.”
Verstappen Salvages P3, Lawson Scores Points
Max Verstappen finished P3 and more importantly ahead of Land Norris in todays grand prix. Despite the recent success from the McLarens Verstappen left this race weekend with a larger lead than he came in with.
Liam Lawson scored points in his return to F1 outscoring RB team veteran, Yuki Tsunoda. His point scoring finish came after he was issued a 60 place grid penalty for the upgrade allocation breaches that were issued to Ricciardo over the 2024 season. After the race he said, “It was a good race; I didn’t expect that to be honest. We had a great first lap, I just went for every little gap and made up some positions. We made a really good step up with the car yesterday, which we hoped would replicate in the race today and thankfully it did.
The car was really strong and it did exactly what we hoped it would do. The Hard [tire] works well for us, and we had good pace too. When I boxed and we got some clean air we were able to keep extending longer than we’d planned and I think for me, doing yesterday’s sprint, I took notes from what others were doing, which really helped. The whole team have put a lot of effort into preparing me for t his, a lot of extra hours knowing it was my first weekend back in the car so a big thanks to everyone in the team for making this happen. Mexico is a very different track so we’ll see what we can do there next week.”
United States Grand Prix 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 |
Note – Gasly and Norris received five-second time penalties for leaving the track and gaining an advantage. Tsunoda received a five-second time penalty for forcing another driver off the track. |