Introduction
Apologies for the late post; this is the recap of the United States Grand Prix two weeks ago. The recap of the Mexican Grand Prix will be up sometime tomorrow.
F1 was in Austin this week, which meant that everyone wore cowboy hats and the drivers were asked to name football teams. The Circuit of the Americas is one of three tracks in the US, and is the second stop in the United States on the calendar. The third and final stop is in Las Vegas in a few weeks. This race wasn’t really anything special. Kimi Antonelli is probably going to win the championship in a few days unless something really drastic happens, which hopefully means the commentators will shut up about how young he is and how impressive it is that he’s doing so well. (He’s 20 years old and has had no consistent rival all season; George Russell challenged him a little bit but not enough to make things interesting.)
Qualifying – Saturday, October 24
Arvid Lindblad, Franco Colapinto, and Gabriel Bortoleto all started the weekend with grid penalties, which meant that their qualifying results didn’t really matter in the long run. Oliver Bearman took pole in the first session with 14 minutes to go, and Lance Stroll somehow managed to get p2. Fernando Alonso took pole with 13 minutes left, and then Esteban Ocon took it right after that. Charles Leclerc took it a minute after Esteban, and Lewis Hamilton took p2. Oscar Piastri took p3, and then Lando Norris took p3. George Russell took p4 and then Kimi Antonelli took p4. Max Verstappen took p2 and Isack Hadjar took p3. Franco Colapinto took a very impressive p10, and Pierre Gasly had his lap time deleted because he went over track limits. George was somehow down in p7. Pierre recovered to p12, and Lando Norris took pole. Esteban Ocon, Lance Stroll, Carlos Sainz, Alex Albon, Checo Perez, and Valtteri Bottas were all eliminated in the first session of qualifying.
Charles took p1 and then Lewis took p1. Nico Hülkenberg took p3 and Max took p1. Somehow this all happened with nine minutes remaining in the session. Pierre took p6 and immediately got it stolen by Liam Lawson. Fernando took p11, Lando took p2, and Oscar took p8. George took p3 and then Kimi stole it, Oscar got bumped down to p10, and George took p1. Of course Kimi stole that as well, but Charles stole it from Kimi. Arvid ended up p9, which was very impressive but didn’t really do anything for him considering his penalty. Pierre, Nico, Ollie, Gabriel, Franco and Fernando were all eliminated in the second qualifying session.
George took p1 and then Kimi took it. Max took p2 and Isack took p3. Charles and Lewis took p4 and p6 respectively. Lando took p7 and then Oscar took p7, and George somehow ended up down in p5, and Lando got his lap time deleted so he finished p8. The top three were Kimi, Max, and Isack in that order.
Race day – Sunday, October 25
Kimi had a wonderful start and kept the lead into the first turn. Max had an awful start and fell down to p4. Charles and Lewis both overtook him to end up p2 and p3 respectively. Max somehow managed to get back up to p2 but at that point Kimi had built up a gap of 24 seconds, so there wasn’t much he could do. A virtual safety car was called due to debris on track, and then a yellow flag was issued for something to do with Ollie, and then another yellow flag was issued for more debris. Lance Stroll reported that Franco Colapinto was losing bodywork. George Russell was under investigation for leaving the track and gaining an advantage. He was given a five second penalty for it. Alex and Fernando were fighting for p15 and Fernando won. Haas swapped their cars around and Gabriel was also noted for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, but he was given no penalty. Lewis was having trouble steering, Nico Hülkenberg was up to p13, and Max was once again complaining about his car (it was the upshifts this time).
Max pit early and came out in p8, which caused a few other people to pit as well. Lewis pit and came out in p9, Oscar pit and came out in p12, and Charles pit and came out in p6. Lando had a very slow pit stop (4.4 seconds) and came out in p9. Max had somehow already made his way up to p3. Ollie was given a ten second penalty for causing a collision. Charles moved up to p4. George pit and came out in p10. Max and Isack swapped positions so Max could move up to p2. Isack was a little reluctant to swap, which sparked a highly entertaining commentary tangent about Red Bull and the second drivers always being told to swap with Max. (To quote David Coulthard: “For a moment he was having an out of body experience and forgot who his employers are.”)
Kimi pit and came out in p4, Max moved up to p1, and Charles moved up to p2. Isack pit and came out in p6 on hard tires, which he was very confused about. Ollie retired from the race. Max was having more issues (front wing, I think) and couldn’t hear his race engineer. He pit, had a slower stop, and came out in p5. Charles was leading the race for a short amount of time and then Kimi overtook him for the lead. Franco also retired from the race. Lewis pit and came out in p6; Charles pit and came out in p4. Max and Charles had a very fun battle for p2 that Charles eventually won. Kimi won the race, Charles finished second, and Max finished third. Lewis and Lando finished p4 and p5.
I have no predictions for next week because no matter what happens, Kimi is going to win the championship. I hope George wins the race and Kimi is either third or not on the podium, though.