Max Verstappen takes victory number 50 in the US GP Race. Both Mercedes and McLaren have shown that they are on their way back into the fight.
The first stint of the US GP Race was frantic with cars battling all down the order. The biggest surprise came from the front, with the McLaren of Lando Norris reacting quicker than Charles Leclerc and taking the lead into turn one. Ferrari would not be happy with that!
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Norris quickly built up a 3 second lead. That lead was slowly being eroded by his fellow countryman Lewis Hamilton, who had moved up to second. Early on in the race Max Verstappen kept himself to himself, moving up 1 place off the line and biding his time for later in the race.
Further down the order, it looked like everyone had survived the chaos of the first lap. But it became clear that the “minor” contact between Ocon and Piastri was a lot worse than it looked. This incident sadly took both cars out of the race. Ocon with bodywork damage that lost the Frenchman around 40 points of downforce. Oscar’s McLaren had a damaged radiator, which led to overheating issues.
As the first stint was drawing to an end, speculation was that Norris, LecLerc, Hamilton and several others were attempting the 1 stop strategy as they put on hard compound tyres. Max Verstappen and Redbull confirmed early on that they were taking a 2 stopper after putting on another set of medium tyres.
Second Stint
Lando Norris returned to the top during the second stint, with Max Verstappen closely behind. Hamilton was in third after a slightly slower stop.
Further down the order, Fernando Alonso in the Aston Martin; who started in the pit lane, pushed his car into the top ten and into the points, Lance Stroll was running well in 14th, a decent return to some kind of speed after horrible sprint on Saturday.
Max to the Top
It took Max and Redbull until lap 27 to take the lead in his RB19.
At this point it was up to both McLaren and Mercedes to engineer a pass on the current World Champions using the tyre offset to their advatage.
Formula 1 does Indy 500
The middle part of the US GP was a prelude to the last 10 or so laps, as with the amazing Indy 500, the teams were setting themselves up for a final battle against each other. Lando Norris was the first to blink pitting on lap 34 for another set of hard tyres, the one stopper was just not working for McLaren.
Max Verstappen responded to McLaren only a lap later putting on the hard tyre in a slightly slower pit stop. He would however return to the race in front of the McLaren, despite the slow pit stop.
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The Final Battle – US GP Race
The final battle for the top spot was between Verstappen, Norris and Hamilton. The Mercedes driver had quietly put himself into contention for a chance to take the win. Verstappen would complain of a braking issue that had clearly flustered the 3 time Champion, with 10 laps to go the top three were separated by 4 seconds. The first move of the top three was by Lewis Hamilton on Lando Norris, the Mercedes driver passed Lando into turn 1 and put himself into second place, with 6 laps to go. Was 6 laps enough for Lewis to reel in Max before the end of the race?
Unfortunatly for the chasing pack the battle didn’t materialise.
The brake issue that had flustered the Dutchman didn’t turn into a more critical issue. Lando Norris was also able to manage the pace to maintain third for McLaren.
Worth a Mention
Danny Ricciardo’s return to the F1 fold ended in disappointment, finishing last after Alpha Tauri tried a 1 stop strategy that just didn’t work.
The Aston Martin cars were looking pretty decent after a pit lane start. At one point Fernando Alonso was well inside the points, however an issue with the floor put an end to the Spaniard’s race. Lance Stroll would salvage a couple of points crossing the line in 9th.
Ferrari had a pretty strange race, Charles Leclerc started on pole, however he would lose the lead by the first corner and was never really in the fight from then on. The Ferrari strategy put the Monegasque in no mans land and to rub salt in the wounds he was ordered to let his teammate through. Charles would finally cross the line in 6th behind Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez.
Even though the final battle between thebchasing Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen didn’t quite happen, it was an interesting Grand Prix. Redbull will be slightly concerned by the pace of both Mercedes and McLaren. If these teams can keep the momentum going into 2024, things could be a lot less dominating for Red Bull. Can they keep this momentum and be genuine title contenders in 2024?
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