2021 United States Grand Prix - Austin, Oct 22 - 24

[Just_a_fan]

140 000 people at the Circuit of the Americas got their money's worth today!

It was no 2005, was it?

[ringo]

Redbull just too fast. Even on older tyres he was equally or faster than LH.
Mercedes had no chance. But great effort by LH.

The points gap is swinging the right way for Max.
Reliability is the only thing that can turn things around.

Not sure we were watching the same race, but Lewis was way faster at the end. It was only the dirty air that slowed his progress.

"no chance" yes was it not for Max getting DRS it would have been incredibly close.

Strategy offset was the only thing that made LH had more pace at one time.
When things settle Max had stronger pacr in sector 1. Even if Max did not get DRS from Mick, as we have seen with Bottas and Sainz the overtake may not have happened for Lewis.

What was telling for me was the first stint with. Max up in LH DRS and managing the pace. The car was just waiting to be unleashed.
RB16B on its way to the WDC. Only a crash or failure can stop them.
And i see them reach 25 points gap in 3 races time anyway.

[Noble29]

I really don't get the waiting so long for the overcut just to have fresher tyres. The time you lose staying out for the extra laps means you have to use the freshness of the tyres just to catch back up again to even have a chance, and by then the tyre advantage is gone by using them to get near. Imagine Hamilton pits and comes out just 4 seconds behind, gets it down to 3 and then Max encounters the traffic that cost him a few seconds, Hamilton is then right in there for the rest of the race and can try something, might get lucky with more backmarkers [ala 2012] or a mistake etc.

Best car won today though, clearly. The way the RB was able to stay with the Merc in the first stint, within DRS whilst on the same compound/tyre life, and then for the Merc to not be able to get in the DRS window with 9 lap fresher tyres says it all. Good effort but again, left with too much to do to even have a go which was already punching above what was really possible.

Shoutout to the backmarkers today though, they seemed even worse than normal at costing the leaders time.

[Tvetovnato]

i just dont understand why they didnt react to maxs stop right away for both occasions. hamilton had the car to challenge but not enough laps

Well, at that point in time, RB was MUCH quicker. He was already past Lewis on the outlap, so if Merc pits Lewis, they lose any sort of strategic advantage, so they had to play the extend stint card. Looking at stint number two, it was 100 % the right thing to keep Lewis out, since Max struggled badly at the end of that stint, so it was a high chance of the same thing to happen in the last stint in the final laps.

But it didn’t. His rear was planted that whole stint, and he even set a purple S1 on the final lap with 9 laps older tyres. There is no chance against that. Merc did what they could this time, and Lewis too. On to the next one.

[west52keep64]

I think Max was being very clever to make sure he had enough tyre life to ensure Hamilton didn't have the "overtake delta" as an advantage. You could hear him asking what that delta was at this track during the race. I think the strategy and the tyre offset was probably flattering the Mercedes towards the end. If you look at the start of the race, on equal tyres, the Red Bull in Verstappen's hands was clearly the fastest car today.

[ringo]

They could not pit Hamilton right after Max as it would have placed him behind Perez.

The MB car just never had the pace to win this race on Merrit.

Redbull was ready to us Perez at any strategy that Merc tried.

Their strategy was actually quite good. Hamilton was driving the nuts of the car and so was Max. And the faster car with the better traction and braking won.

[F1NAC]

It is great to see the progress of Ferrari. From being tank on the straights, to be able to defend from Bottas with fresher engine.

Leclerc 25 seconds from Ric. Great.

The race was so-so

Didn't believe that Ham will have a delta to pass him. RB was just too good in first stint. That one decided the race.

[pantherxxx]

Super Max! Mercedes was way faster on the harder tyres, but Verstappen managed to pull out something incredible in the last few laps.

[PlatinumZealot]

Was an amazing race and a nervous one.

Good job to Max. But let's face it, he was 90% going to win barring any mistakes.

Checo too did well. He said he lost strength because his water bottle stopped working.

LH100 did his best. Never got into the DRS at all despite an offset strategy.

The RedBull was impressive actually. It was able to live in the Mercedes DRS zone the entire stint. Certainly the faster car at this track. Max was quite comfortable in his pace.

Mercedes had the strength of tyre life. They should have tried to undercut the RedBull and hang on. I can't say I'm too disappointed.

Onto the other five races...

[JordanMugen]

Yamamoto on the podium this time.

[JordanMugen]

I really don't get the waiting so long for the overcut just to have fresher tyres. The time you lose staying out for the extra laps means you have to use the freshness of the tyres just to catch back up again to even have a chance

I'm not so sure, it could have gone either way. Red Bull were obviously confident that at this track a much larger advantage is needed to pass due to dirty air effects.

[darkpino]

Indeed Lewis looked a tiny bit quicker especially on the medium tyres. RBR pulled off something pretty special today

[ringo]

If Max got the better start at lap 1 he would have been gone into the distance.

Lewis made it a good race. Max also raced very well, putting full trust into his car and driving without any errors.

Perez had issues with his drink so it would have been nice to see him pushing without that issue.

Great racing from Ferrari and Mclaren. I liked that battle.

[etusch]

Super Max! Mercedes was way faster on the harder tyres, but Verstappen managed to pull out something incredible in the last few laps.

I don't know how but merc's tyre life is so long. Even in this condition they stayed long to have tyre advantage. So it is not "way faster". Faster is also questionable. But even if merc were faster, there is a young man who knows how to drive, how to save tires and how to win. And at the end this is what matters.

[darkpino]

If Max got the better start at lap 1 he would have been gone into the distance.

Lewis made it a good race. Max also raced very well, putting full trust into his car and driving without any errors.

Perez had issues with his drink so it would have been nice to see him pushing without that issue.

Great racing from Ferrari and Mclaren. I liked that battle.

I agree, the Mercedes doesn’t work in dirty air, it never did. If Max was P1 after T1 he would have run into the distance I think