The race started with Andrea Kimi Antonelli securing the lead, as Max Verstappen’s car had a very slow deployment, causing Charles Leclerc to overtake him and his teammate Isack Hadjar for P2. Lewis Hamilton also overtook Hadjar to claim P4. Nearing the end of lap 1, Verstappen overtook Leclerc and reinstated himself at P2 going into lap 2.
On lap 15, Hamilton pitted to switch out his tires from softs to mediums, bringing him down from P3 to P9. Ferrari teammate Leclerc pitted on lap 16 and was overtaken by Hadjar, Russell and Verstappen bringing him down to P5 from P2. Verstappen overtook Russell in lap 18 bringing him to P3 right behind his teammate.
Ollie Bearman was given a 10 second penalty on lap 19 because of his contact with Pierre Gasly into turn 13 on lap 2. Leclerc overtook Russell on lap 20 bringing him back up to P4 behind both Red Bull cars and Antonelli, who had maintained his lead from the first lap. Lap 23 saw race orders from Red Bull to let Verstappen pass Hadjar and move to P2.
Antonelli pitted in lap 25 causing Verstappen, Hadjar and Leclerc to overtake him, leaving him in P3 and giving them P1, P2 and P3, respectively. Although he was overtaken, this was a strong strategy played by Mercedes because everyone in front of him would need to pit at least one more time throughout the race. So if he could maintain pace with them, he could most likely overtake them when they pit.
On lap 30, Verstappen encountered a problem with his radio and could not hear his race engineer and pitted in lap 32, bumping him down to P5. Antonelli overtook Leclerc on that same lap bringing him back to P1 where he remained for the rest of the race. Leclerc pitted on lap 40 leaving Norris and Verstappen to overtake him, leaving him at P4 as the race continued. In lap 47, Verstappen overtook Norris and got back to P2, and Leclerc overtook Norris later in the lap for P3. Leclerc overtook Verstappen on lap 49 and got to P2, demoting Verstappen to P3. Hamilton then overtook Norris on lap 51, demoting him to P5.
Antonelli won the U.S. Grand Prix over 13 seconds ahead of Leclerc in P2 and has now nearly secured himself the World Drivers Championship. Antonelli only needs to gain two points on Russell and one point on Hamilton.
Russell tried to make headway throughout the race but kept getting stuck behind Piastri for most of the race. According to Mercedes, the new upgrades given to the cars changed their operational windows; a move that right now seems to favor Antonelli’s style of racing and dramatically hurt Russell’s.
Mercedes team lead Toto Wolff said, “We will try to retrace every decision that we took, and correlate with the lack of performance on Friday and then the relative outperformance Saturday and Sunday. But at least the positive news is that the car works. So now it’s about widening the window of operation.”
The next race is the Mexico City Grand Prix on Nov. 1 at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. If Antonelli places above Russell and Hamilton, he will win the WDC in Mexico.
