R19 – United States

Max Verstappen has claimed a dominant victory at the United States Grand Prix, the Red Bull driver converting pole position into a commanding win while Lando Norris beat Charles Leclerc to second place in a thrilling duel between the pair.

It had been a strong start to the race for Verstappen, the Dutchman holding the lead from pole position while the rest of the field got through Turn 1 much more cleanly than during Saturday’s action-packed Sprint.

Though questions remained in the early stages over strategy choices, all of the field opted for a one-stop plan – and this worked smoothly for Verstappen, who remained in P1 after his stop.
And while he had to nurse his soft tyres home in the latter stages, the reining World Champion crossed the line with a margin of 7.959s to seal his fifth Grand Prix triumph of the season.

The full top 10 are- P1: Verstappen, P2: Norris, P3: Leclerc, P4: Hamilton, P5: Piastri, P6: Russell, P7: Tsunoda, P8: Hulkenberg, P9: Bearman and P10: Alonso.

What a result for Max Verstappen! A perfect weekend for the Dutchman, a dominant display which was needed in the fight for the Drivers’ Championship, if he keeps going the way his going, McLaren are going to be in BIG trouble…

P2 for Norris, a good race for him, it made up for his disappoint Sprint Race. He had a nice little battle with Leclerc, but it does make you think if he didn’t loose that position at the beginning of the race, would he of battled for the win with Max?
As for the Championship leader, a weekend to forget for him, Piastri finished fifth, but he just didn’t seem to have any pace at all.

P3 and P4 for the Ferrari’s, Leclerc back on the podium! And a good showing for Hamilton in 4th. They both had a better race than the Sprint, they obviously set their car up for the race rather than the Sprint which they’ve done before.

A bit of a setback for the Mercedes of George Russell, P6 for him, again it didn’t seem like he had any pace in the race but the Sprint he did. A disappointing race for Antonelli, he got tagged by Sainz early on in the race, and he had to battle his way up the field.

Another points finish for Bearman, he has found something which just works at the minute and he is getting rewarded with points.

Not a good race for Williams, a DNF for Sainz after he got tangled with Antonelli and then for Albon he got spun round and had to work his way up to finish 14th.

Now we don’t have to wait too long for the next race weekend, as it’s Round 20 this weekend and we head to Mexico!

It was an unbelievable weekend for us. I knew that the race was not going to be super forward. If you look at the whole race, the pace between myself and Lando was really close. Just in that first stint was where we made the difference and I could eke out a bit of a gap, which is basically what we kept to the end. It wasn’t easy to manage the tyres for most of the stints, but we kept it in the lead and I’m just incredibly proud of everyone to be able to deliver a weekend like this.
Verstappen on the win.

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