Charles Leclerc produced an exceptional drive to win the United States Grand Prix as Lando Norris and Max Verstappen enjoyed an epic battle for third place.
Heading into Turn One Verstappen made an aggressive move to the inside. Norris covered him off, but not hard enough – the Dutchman wriggled through, pushing his title rival onto the run-off area.
That move created room for the two Ferrari drivers on the inside and Leclerc capitalised, lunging through to climb from fourth to first in a matter of two corners. From there, the Monegasque driver started to check out as Verstappen struggled to match him.
Further back in the pack Lewis Hamilton was making some headway, climbing to 12th from 17th on the grid by the end of lap one. Unfortunately for him, his race was brought to a premature end on lap three as he spun into the gravel at Turn 19, bringing out a safety car.
When the safety car came in Verstappen tried to follow Leclerc, but his efforts were futile. 10 laps later, the Ferrari racer was over seven seconds clear of the championship leader. Norris, meanwhile, was struggling to make up ground in P4.
Sainz, fresh from challenging the three-time world champion in the opening laps of the race, triggered an undercut on Verstappen on lap 22. When the Red Bull driver came in four laps later, his rival was comfortably ahead.
Norris started to come alive during the latter stages of the stint, and so McLaren’s strategists opted to run him long, using his superior pace to create a tyre offset to Verstappen ahead. He eventually pitted on lap 31 and rapidly began eating into the six-second deficit to his championship rival.
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