Charles Leclerc took a flawless victory in the United States Grand Prix, the Monegasque driver lead home team mate Carlos Sainz in a one-two after storming through into the lead on the opening lap.
Pole-sitter Norris initially looked to have held the lead off the line when the lights went out for the 56 lap race, but the McLaren went side-by-side with Verstappen into the first, which led to the Brit being pushed wide allowing Leclerc to sneak through and grab P1.
From there, Leclerc enjoyed an unchallenged drive to victory, while team mate Sainz benefitted from an undercut to put himself into second place ahead of Verstappen following his pit stop.
As the race entered the final stages, Norris overtook Verstappen for P3 following a close duel between the championship rivals – but the nature of the move prompted discussion over the radio, with Verstappen and Red Bull claiming that Norris had overtaken outside of the track limits.
Norris ended up receiving a five second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage. He crossed the line in P3 but as Verstappen was only 4 second behind he grabbed the last podium spot.
The full top 10 are P1: Leclerc, P2: Sainz, P3: Verstappen, P4: Norris, P5: Piastri, P6: Russell, P7: Perez, P8: Hulkenberg, P9: Lawson and P10: Colapinto.
What a lovely result for the Ferrari boys, a lovely 1-2 for the Italian team, it has helped massively in the Constructors standings they are only 8 points between them and Red Bull in 2nd.
Charles drove a fantastic race, the team had the perfect strategy for the team and especially with Carlos aswell performing the undercut.
A good race for Verstappen – however, he did have a few problems in the race with the car and tyres which tell us they haven’t sorted out all of their problems…
Perez finished 7th – nothing amazing from him I feel like he wasn’t there much with overtaking. he just seems to be struggling with the car so much in comparison to Max.
A good result for McLaren, P4 for Norris and P5 for Piastri – unfortunate for Norris with the penalty but it was good to see a nice fight between Norris and Verstappen. Piastri had a pretty okay race, I think he mostly wanted to stay out of trouble and score some decent points.
A very good day for Russell – he ended up starting in the pitlane due to Mercedes repairing his car out of parc ferme from his crashing in qualifying. He finished P6 which is a lovely recovery drive from the Brit.
Unfortunately for Hamilton spun out early in the race where he beached his Mercedes in the gravel.
Hulkenberg finished P8, a double points finish for himself at the teams home Grand Prix which is a lovely result for the team, especially with Magnussen grabbing points in the sprint as well.
Lawson and Colapinto rounded out of the top 10, points back on debut for Liam Lawson in the VCARB, his performing in a way in which he deserves a full time seat for next season.
I’m very happy. It hasn’t been an easy weekend, until now I have been struggling a bit with the feeling with the car but I had the confidence that in the race the feeling was better, and it was the case. We’ve seen it yesterday in the Sprint race, we were a bit… not scared, but we thought the others would improve a lot more today but we still had the upper hand so really happy with today. A one-two for the team, we couldn’t have dreamed for better.
Leclerc on winning the race.
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