Verstappen leads sprint race at Austin from start to finish
Lots happened in today's F1 Sprint at Circuit of the Americas, but it was all behind Max Verstappen who enjoyed a clean and steady 19 laps to take the win from pole. Carlos Sainz made a last lap pass on Lando Norris to take second ahead of the McLaren driver.
From pole, Verstappen had a solid start end opted to go for the inside to approach Turn 1 and secure first place. The battle happened behind him as Norris had a great start and moved up to third before the first corner and went past Russell through Turn 3. As Norris cleared himself of the cars behind, Norris came under attack by Leclerc and Sainz.
Meanwhile the other McLaren, in the hands of Oscar Piastri also made some progress as he moved up two positions, up into 12th.
In the second lap the Ferraris had a bit of a battle among themselves with Sainz first failing to make it past his team mate at the end of the back straight, then passing but passed again before the end of the lap. More of the same happened the next lap with Sainz momentarily getting ahead of Leclerc through Turn 1, only to be repassed before the next corner. Sainz continued to push until he eventually got 4th position on lap 6.
Fernando Alonso on the other hand had a dreadful first few laps, first being overtaken by Piastri but then also falling behind Lawson, down into 16th position whereas Stroll gained one position into 12th.
As Verstappen had built a 2.5s lead, Norris didn't have it all too easy as Russell continued to be very close and challenging for second place. The Ferrari duo and Hamilton also remained without striking distance in case anybody ahead made a mistake.
Magnussen and Hulkenberg held 7th and 8th but were by then more than 6 seconds further down the road.
2 laps later, Russell suddenly fell back from Norris and reported his "front left is toast". Indeed, moments later Sainz wrestled himself past the Mercedes and Leclerc followed suit on lap 11. Leclerc followed that up with a fastest lap on lap 12.
Tension continued until the very end with Norris not for a moment able to rest, instead continuously forced to push to stay ahead of the Ferrari duo who were as close to one another as they had been at the start of the race.
In fact in the final lap, Turn 1 was the moment for Sainz as after a dummy move, Norris locked up his front wheels and saw Sainz pass and take second place. Leclerc attempted to overtake Norris as well but as he overcooked it a bit himself, he had to content himself with 4th place.
Verstappen meanwhile had a reasonably comfortable 19 laps, holding on to that 2 to 3 second advantage he got early on.
Also of interest was Piastri who struggled to make progress and even got a 5s penalty for forcing Ocon off-track, but passing Tsunoda 4 laps from the end proved enough to build a 7 second advantage, enabling him to not lose a position due to the penalty. Piastri finished 10th, a solid result after a poor Sprint Shootout, but not enough for points.
