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Max Verstappen lives the American dream in US GP thriller
The Dutch star doubled his world championship lead after winning a strategic battle in Austin, while Sergio Pérez made it a second double-podium in a row for Red Bull Racing Honda.
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Max Verstappen knew the way to the podium at the Circuit of the Americas – he finished second in 2018 in and third in 2019) there – but the top step in Texas had proved elusive until Sunday's United States Grand Prix, where the Red Bull Racing Honda driver increased his championship lead with his eighth victory of the 2021 Formula One season.
Austin was the sixth time this year the flying Dutchman had converted a pole position into a race victory, but this win was anything but run of the mill; after losing out to title rival Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) into the first corner, Red Bull Racing Honda and Verstappen made a strategic decision to pit for the final time earlier than expected, an aggressive call that gave Verstappen track position but left him susceptible to a charging Hamilton in the final laps.
A 56-lap race essentially boiled down to the final five laps as Hamilton hunted Verstappen down, but the Dutchman kept his nerve – and his right foot planted – to win by 1.3 seconds to extend his championship lead to 12 points with five races remaining in a gripping season.
Verstappen had just enough in hand to take his first US GP win
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
It was a significant achievement for Red Bull Racing Honda at a circuit Mercedes has dominated throughout the V6 turbo hybrid era dating back to 2014, taking all six pole positions before Verstappen's Saturday showstopper, while Circuit of The Americas has been Hamilton territory, the Briton winning five of the previous eight race held before Sunday.
Verstappen had led just two laps in Austin before 2021, but led 35 of them on Sunday and – crucially – the last one as Hamilton used his fresher tyres to pile on the pressure in the closing stages.
After Hamilton pitted with 18 laps to go, Verstappen had an eight-second lead to protect with tyres that were eight laps older – and had just enough in hand to strike a decisive blow in yet another gripping instalment of this year's title fight.
Here's how Verstappen became the biggest star in the Lone Star state after Sunday's US Grand Prix.
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Max plays it cool in the Texas heat
With F1 back in America for the first time since 2019, the scene at the start of the race was a familiar one, with Verstappen and Hamilton lining up alongside one another on the front row for the seventh time this season.
In front of a 140,000-strong crowd ready for anything and with Austin's signature 30-metre climb to Turn 1 a renowned hotspot for chaos just 230 metres into the race, Red Bull Racing Honda team principal Christian Horner felt on Saturday that the first few seconds of Sunday's race would produce "a grandstand start", adding "you definitely want to lead into Turn 1."
As it turned out, Horner was right about the former and wrong about the latter, with Hamilton making the marginally better getaway and running Verstappen deep into the braking zone, plunging downhill into the first sector of the first lap with the advantage.
On a track where tyre degradation is typically high, a two-stop strategy to the top step was the only one to be on, and both times Verstappen pitted before Hamilton, decisively as early as Lap 10 to jump the British driver after his own stop two laps later. From there, a late-race showdown looked almost inevitable, and Verstappen's composure at the end – given what was at stake – stood out.
The Dutchman was the biggest star in the Lone Star state
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
Verstappen admitted afterwards that he wondered if the early pit stop call would pay off, but was thrilled to win for the first time in the US.
"We lost out in the start, so we had to try to do something else," he said.
"The tyre wear is quite high around this track and we did go aggressive [with strategy]. I was not sure it was going to work, but the last few laps were fun.
"The tyres were not in a great state and I knew how much Lewis was catching, but we managed to hold on at the end. Luckily it was just enough."
Horner was full of praise for the Dutchman's drive, even if it came at a cost to his heart rate in the closing stages.
"I think I've aged about 25 years in that race," he joked afterwards.
"I really didn't think we could hang on at the end there, it was such a long stint. For him to protect the tyres, hang in there and be quick where he needed to be, he deserved that victory today. Max, he just managed to keep enough in hand – that was a classy, classy drive.
"It's big for us to beat Mercedes here, that's a big win for us."
Checo survives and thrives in 'toughest race'
F1 in 2021 has been very much a race in two at the front – Verstappen's lead over third-placed Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) now stands at 102.5 points – and Sunday's race adhered to that theme, with Pérez finishing 42 seconds off the victory for his fourth podium of the season. But this was no ordinary conversion of third on the grid to third in the race for the Mexican, after his drinks bottle didn't work for the best part of 90 minutes in the Texan heat.
Pérez enjoyed a strong weekend at Circuit of The Americas, leading two of the three practice sessions, taking provisional pole on Saturday before being edged by Verstappen and Hamilton on the final lap of Q3, and then spending the majority of the race in a comfortable third place ahead of Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, jumping Lando Norris (McLaren) into fourth place in the championship as a result.
Pérez battled the heat and lack of hydration to finish third
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
Afterwards, Pérez was part elated, part exhausted.
"I think that was my toughest race ever physically," he said.
"I struggled massively, since lap one I ran out of water and I couldn’t drink at all, and by the middle of my second stint it was starting to get pretty difficult.
"It was a horrible one – from the first stint I was struggling massively to make things properly and I was losing strength. It was a shame I couldn't keep up with Max and Lewis, but I was so physically limited today."
With Bottas hampered by a grid penalty for an engine change and only advancing to sixth from ninth on the grid, Red Bull Racing clawed back 13 points of its deficit to Mercedes in the constructors' championship largely because of Pérez's brave effort.
"Checo's been a bit under the weather this weekend, so that was tough not the have the drinks system for him," Horner said.
"You can see his confidence is growing, that's the second race in a row for him he's on the podium. He's finding his form, which is crucial at this time of the year."
Tsunoda strikes on first American outing
Scuderia AlphaTauri rookie Yuki Tsunoda had never been to the United States before, let alone tackle the tricky Texas track, so the Japanese driver's ninth-place finish was hugely meritorious given the heat, his lack of familiarity with the circuit and the strategic disadvantage of starting on the soft tyre for the race.
Tsunoda qualified 10th on Saturday, but pitted on Lap 9 to put himself out of sequence with the rest of the midfield before unleashing a fighting drive where he battled with the likes of world champions Kimi Räikkönen (Alfa Romeo) and Fernando Alonso (Alpine) for much of the middle of the race. Two points for ninth place – his first points in six races – was a fitting reward.
Tsunoda snapped his points drought in style with ninth
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
While he started the race and hovered in the back-end of the top 10 early on, Gasly was the first of three retirements when he limped back to the pits with rear suspension damage on Lap 14, making the wait for his first points in the US last another year.
Top-three fight tightens, Vettel flies to points
The battle for third-best team has waxed and waned between McLaren and Ferrari all year, and the Italian team edged to within 3.5 points of their British rivals in Austin after Charles Leclerc's quality drive to fourth, the Monegasque finishing 24 seconds ahead of McLaren's Daniel Ricciardo in fifth.
Ricciardo got the better of team-mate Norris (eighth), with the Australian winning a race-long battle with Ferrari's Carlos Sainz, the pair making contact as they fought on Lap 43.
Elsewhere, a trio of drivers – Aston Martin's Sebastian Vettel, George Russell of Williams and Alonso in the Alpine – took engine penalties and started at the back, with Vettel making the best of a bad situation by recovering to 10th and a world championship point. The German has made more on-track overtakes (102) than any other driver this season.
A hero's homecoming
There's a weekend off between Austin and the Mexican Grand Prix (November 7), which is probably just as well given the build-up for the return of F1 to Mexico City will be even bigger than usual for Pérez.
The last time the home hero took to the circuit at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in 2019, he had yet to win a Grand Prix; since then Pérez has stood on the top step twice (Sakhir 2020 and Azerbaijan 2021), and will be in his most competitive machinery yet in front of his adoring fans, who will undoubtedly pack the stadium section at the end of the lap and produce some of the most atmospheric scenes of any F1 season.
Some of Pérez's stiffest competition should come from the sister Red Bull garage if history is any guide, as Verstappen was completely dominant in Mexico in 2017 and 2018, winning both races by nearly 20 seconds.
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