Kimi Antonelli has moved closer to securing his first World Driver’s Championship after a resounding victory at the United States Grand Prix.
Antonelli had a dream start off the line to maintain his lead heading into turn 1, all the while Verstappen behind struggled for power, which would eventually lead to Charles Leclerc briefly taking 2nd place. While Verstappen would regain the position shortly after, the squabbling meant that Antonelli was over 2 seconds clear of the field at the end of the first lap.
A Virtual Safety Car would come out on lap 2, due to contact between Albon and Alonso which resulted in the latter’s bargeboard coming off of his car. This would only be a brief VSC though, as the debris was quickly cleared up and racing was able to resume.
George Russell would gain a 5 second penalty after an incident that happened on the opening lap, as he would struggle to stay on track at turn 12, which the stewards believed helped him stay ahead of the McLaren behind him, leaving the track and gaining an advantage.
After something of a processional opening to this race, Verstappen would be the first to come into the pits at the end of lap 13, going onto another set of soft tyres and clearly committing to a two-stop strategy.
This would trigger a wave of pit stops throughout the grid, with Hamilton coming in one lap later, while Leclerc and Norris would do the same soon after, though there would be some variety in what tyres they would go onto. Ferrari elected to put their drivers on medium tyres, also committing to a two stop, while McLaren put hard tyres on, suggesting they wanted to get to the end on that compound.
Antonelli would stay out for as long as he could, eventually pitting on lap 25. The undercut gained by others who had pit earlier meant that he had fallen to P4, though he would still make gains towards the front as he was on the freshest set of tyres out of all the front runners at this time.
Things would further fall into place for Antonelli as both Red Bull cars were reported as suffering from technical issues, including Verstappen in the lead of the race. He would eventually pit on lap 32, coming out in 5th place, 7 seconds behind Norris.
This would free up Antonelli and Leclerc to fight for the lead, though it would not be much of a fight as Antonelli would easily snatch 1st place away from the Ferrari soon after Verstappen’s stop, and it now looked all but inevitable that he would win this race.
Russell was struggling to make inroads after his 5 second penalty had pushed him down to 8th place, and while he was following Piastri closely, the McLaren driver was doing well to defend his poisiton and stay ahead in 7th.
Ferrari would pit Hamilton and Leclerc for the second time at the end of laps 38 and 39 respectively, putting the two onto hard tyres to go until the end of the race. They would each lose a few positions as a result, and they would both need to put in a solid final stint in order to gain some places back.
Norris was running in 2nd place thanks to his one stop strategy, but was quickly being gained on by the likes of Verstappen and Leclerc. Soon, the three would be right by one another, and they would squabble fiercely over the remaining podium positions.
On lap 47, Leclerc looked as though he was more likely to make an overtake on Verstappen than the Red Bull driver was to make one on Norris, but Verstappen would make an audacious lunge into turn 1, managing to get the car slowed down enough on the apex in order to claim 2nd place. This would also buy him more time in his fight with Leclerc, as he was still having issues with his car.
Later on in the lap, Leclerc would himself manage to pass Norris, who was really struggling now on his old hard tyres. This now freed up Leclerc to chase after Verstappen once again, and he would eventually take 2nd place for himself after making an overtake on lap 49.
Hamilton would himself reclaim another position by overtaking Norris for 4th, and was now very much in contention for a podium place in the dying laps. However, he would never manage to catch up to the Red Bull by the time the race ended, with a VSC coming out only a few laps before the end certainly not helping his ability to close the gap with such little time remaining.
In the end, Antonelli breezed to victory in Austin, only barely managing to not secure the championship in this race due to Russell finishing in 8th place.
He will likely have to wait until next week’s Mexico City Grand Prix, which will take place next week on Sunday, November 1.
