By FIA
Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen fended off intense late-race pressure from title rival Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes to claim a well-worked United States Grand Prix win at the Circuit of the Americas. Sergio Pérez doubled Red Bull’s celebrations by taking third place and the Team’s 200th podium finish.
When the lights went out at the start Hamilton was quickest off the line and though he was forced to take a deep inside line on the run up the hill to Turn 1 as Verstappen defended, the Mercedes driver held firm and as the title rivals went through Turn 1 the Red Bull driver had to go off track on the outside, handing the lead to Hamilton.
Behind them Pérez held third place ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc but McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo passed Carlos Sainz at the start to take fifth position. Sainz ended the first lap in P6 ahead of Lando Norris in the second McLaren and AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda who had risen to eighth from P10 at the start.
Vertsappen shadowed Hamilton for the first 10 laps but unable to get close enough in the turbulent wake from the Mercedes. And with his starting medium tyres overheating, the Dutchman pitted at the end of lap 10 to take on hard rubber. He rejoined in P5 behind Ricciardo but soon passed the McLaren driver.
Pérez made his first stop on lap 12 taking on medium tyres and Mercedes reacted to the Red Bull stops by bringing Hamilton in at the end of lap 13. The Briton’s move to hard tyres was clean and quick but as he left his pit box Verstappen powered down the start-finish straight to take a 6.7s lead.
The leaders then settled into the second stint, with Verstappen carefully trying to managed the gap. Hamilton though showed greater pace and he edged to within three seconds as the race headed past half distance.
On lap 29 Verdstappen dived into the pits for another set of hard tyres. He weas followed a lap later by team-mate Pérez, with the Mexican this time taking hard…
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