The fifteenth victory of the season (the fiftieth of his career) for Max Verstappen was the most difficult. Before the race in the paddock there was a sort of “toto giro”, that is, how many laps it would take for the world champion (who started sixth) to take the lead in the race.
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
In the end Verstappen won, but he had to fight for all 56 laps of the race with brake problems that greatly affected his race, making it decidedly more uphill than expected. Every time his race engineer Giampiero Lambiase updated him on the gaps, Max responded angrily: “Don’t talk to me on the radio when I’m braking!”.
Today in Austin the Red Bull wasn’t the fastest car on the track, but in the end the victory still came. The credit goes to perfect management of the strategies and to a driver who in times of need confirmed that he was a huge added value. Verstappen couldn’t afford too many overtime with the braking system and, after finishing fifth at the start, in the first stint he ‘only’ passed Sainz and Leclerc. After the stop he overtook Norris on lap 28, while Hamilton ended up behind him due to Mercedes’ poor strategic choices.
Once in the lead he navigated the curves of the Circuit of America for another 28 laps, managing the tires and brakes based on the gaps that were reported to him from the pit wall. Once he crossed the finish line, Christian Horner understood that Max was quite upset, and immediately reassured him: “We will investigate the problem you had, congratulations on your fiftieth victory”.
“We changed the brakes after the sprint race but the problems remained – explained Max – I didn’t have a good feeling when braking and it was like that for the whole race. We need to understand the reasons, because when you don’t have a lot of confidence in braking it’s not easy to decide to brake. It can cost you quite a bit of lap time, and I assure you it was more difficult than I expected.”
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W14
Verstappen’s complicated race offered an assist to Mercedes, but the strategy was not the best, frustrating the possibility of taking the first success of the season. When Verstappen entered the pit lane for the first stop, Hamilton had a five-second advantage over the world champion, and it would have been enough to call for a tire change the following lap to keep Lewis ahead of the number 1 Red Bull. Instead, the Mercedes strategists left Lewis on track for another four laps, and after the stop Hamilton returned to the track seven seconds behind Max.
Mercedes sensationally underestimated the potential of its car, believing that it would be impossible to beat Verstappen with the same strategy. So they initially focused on single parking, only to change their minds when the damage was already done. What increased the regret for the wrong choice was the pace confirmed by Hamilton in the last stint of the race, a pace that allowed him to close the gap on Verstappen to just over a second on the final lap. Lewis saw the glass half full, extolling the quality of the updates brought to Austin by the team, but it doesn’t happen often that Red Bull suffers problems, and today the opportunity was not taken.
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-23
For different positions, Ferrari also messed with the strategy. The data emerges clearly from the comparison between the races of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, who started in first and fourth position respectively. That there was no potential to compete with the Verstappen-Hamilton tandem became clear in the first stint of the race, but the choice made with Leclerc to focus on the single stop deprived Charles of the possibility of fighting for third position. In the end Sainz, fourth across the line, finished four seconds behind Norris, the same margin Leclerc had over the Spaniard before he made the first of his two stops.
Perhaps on the Scuderia wall they aimed too high, playing a different card than their opponents which in the end proved to be a losing one, but the SF-23 will not go down in history as a single-seater capable of managing the tires in the best possible way, and aiming for this aspect seemed a little surprising.
In the end Leclerc lost out, only sixth under the checkered flag. After Friday’s pole position, Charles would have deserved to fight for the podium, and if he wasn’t able to do so it certainly wasn’t his fault.
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