Max Verstappen has added another victory to his palmares thanks to his success in the sprint race of the United States Grand Prix. After having conquered pole on Saturday morning, thus achieving what he had missed in Friday’s qualifying due to the cancellation of the time due to track limits, the Dutchman easily dominated the race, even if there were no shortage of high-tension episodes, especially at the start.
After a good sprint when the traffic lights went out, in fact, the three-time world champion immediately moved towards his left to close on Charles Leclerc and cover the inside line in turn one. A maneuver that worked perfectly from his point of view, because it did not allow the Monegasque to attempt the attack: on the contrary, the Ferrari driver was then overtaken by Lewis Hamilton, slipping to third place.
“She was pretty on edge. But luckily there is plenty of room at the first corner. So yeah, that definitely helps. But yes, after that we were able to do our race, controlling the pace a bit. And then at the end I enjoyed pushing a little more”, explained the Red Bull driver, explaining the maneuver at the start and when it was decisive to maintain the lead in order to impose his own pace.
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB19
In the first laps Hamilton was able to stay one second behind the leader, thus being able to take advantage of the DRS, so much so that his race engineer even via radio suggested some indications to manage the situation. However, after several laps in 39s, the Briton’s times rose to 40s, thus starting to widen the gap to the race leader.
“At the start Hamilton was always at eight nine tenths for a few laps, so it was all controllable under braking. But yes, the DRS with such large wings makes a difference on this track, it is very powerful. Once the DRS was removed, we all settled on our relative race pace. And I think the pace of the car was very good today,” added Max, who then finished with a lead of nine and a half seconds.
If today the Dutchman made his life easier by starting from pole, tomorrow he will instead be forced to start from sixth place, which will force him to make a comeback in the first laps. He will use the pace shown today to quickly get rid of his opponents and avoid putting excessive stress on the tyres: “I need it tomorrow, starting from sixth position will make the race a little different than today. But this makes the race interesting. Hopefully we can have some fun tomorrow, make some overtaking and, of course, win.”
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