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The Tifosi celebrated as Ferrari claimed a one-two in the United States Grand Prix, with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz taking P1 and P2. A lucky P3 came from Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen after a strong battle with Lando Norris.
A first lap that didn’t disappoint the F1 world saw Verstappen and Norris battle it out but it was the Ferraris that controlled the race.
Max Verstappen vs Lando Norris
Verstappen claimed “he didn’t have the pace to attack” but kept P3 after Lando Norris recieved a penalty after overtaking the dutch lion off track. A close battle between the two is growing and this will be exciting towards the end of the season. Both drivers are P1 and P2 in the Drivers Championship with all to race for.
“He went completely off the track… I don’t know, I need to look back at it.” said Norris, disagreeing with the five second penalty he was given for his overtake. The papaya driver seemed to think Verstappen also did the same as he shows some confusion with the penalty.
Norris continued: “We probably ended up where we thought we would be, obviously I expected third, third is what we deserved today.”
Despite a stronger show from Red Bull this weekend Verstappen still has problems with his car, he said: “just understeering a lot, struggling on the breaking, so that made the defending quite difficult. Because every time if someone wanted to go for a move I couldn’t really break that late. It was a tough battle.”
Red Bull haven’t claimed a win since the Spanish Grand Prix and it has been evident they have been struggling. However, todays race showed some promise for Verstappen and a P3, no matter how controversial, will help him continue to lead the World Drivers Championship.
Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz rise with Ferrari
Charles Leclerc took all the glory at Austin, with a huge season turn around from Ferrari. This is their first one-two since Australia and have had their fair share of struggles this season.
However, Carlos Sainz is positive about the car after claiming P2 he said: “I am really happy for everyone in ferrari now… this year it looks like we can go into attack mode and not think too much about tyres and push and overtake which is fun.”
After Verstappen and Norris battled it out in the first corner it left the track to the Ferrari’s which they used to dominate the race but it was Charles Leclerc who manager P1 track position, Sainz said: “I knew Lando and Max were going to go hard into turn one and unfortunately I got the worst of it and I couldn’t get that lead.
Charles Lecerc was “not surprised” that Verstappen would go “flat out in turn one”.
The track position secured a dominant race for Leclerc, the Monegasque said: “It was a pretty straightforward race after the start for me, it was all abut managing the gap behind, on the first stint I made quite a big gap, on the second stint I was just managing with Carlos behind and it was feeling very good. The car was great.”
Leclerc’s lead into turn one was everything for him to lead the race he said: “I knew he [Max Verstappen] would be very aggressive so I tried to take that into account… that helped me to win that race.”
Charles Leclerc is looking at the Constructors
Ferrari’s eyes are on that constructors championship as they are eight points behind Red Bull Racing who are second and will be hoping to get as close as possible to the Woking based team McLaren in first.
Looking ahead Leclerc said: “I just really hope we are going to do that for the rest of the season and hopefully we can win that constructors championship.