A great double victory was recorded by Ferrari at the track in Austin, Texas. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz had a huge lead over the others. Leclerc recorded his third win of the season and the Italian’s first at this track since 2018. A penalty pushed Max Verstappen into third place.
McLaren’s Lando Norris and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen started from the front row and the world champion tried to push his title rival off the track. Charles Leclerc took advantage of this, taking the lead and Norris dropped to fourth place behind Carlos Sainz.
At the start, 7-time world champion Lewis Hamilton with Mercedes flew into the gravel and this brought out a safety car for the first time in many races.
After that, with a crossing strategy, Ferrari managed to get Carlos Sainz through Verstappen. Max put the hard tires on and his car didn’t feel very good on them. The McLaren of Lando Norris got off to a great start and he quickly caught up about 5 seconds behind. The two got into each other and with about 4 laps to go they both left the track but Norris came out ahead. Stewards immediately gathered to look into the incident.
In the end, Norris received a 5 second penalty which pushed him behind Verstappen. Fifth finished second in the McLaren of Oscar Piastri. Jord Russell in the Mercedes started from the pits but ended up finishing sixth. Seventh was Sergio Perez with “Red Bull”. Nico Hulkenberg with Haas, Liam Lawson with RB and Franco Colapinto with Williams took the final points.
Thus, with 6 laps to go, Verstappen’s title lead over Norris grew to 57 points. However, Leclerc is now only 22 out of second place.
With constructors, “McLaren” has only 40 points ahead of “Red Bull” and 48 ahead of “Ferrari”.