Another 1-2 for the Scuderia!
- pitwallstories
- Oct 21, 2024
- 5 min read
Once again we are back on American turf and what better way to start the weekend than with a Sprint Race win for Max Verstappen.
After dominating the qualifying session on Friday, Max managed to obtain pole position, something he rather longed since he hadn't been at the top of the top-ten starters since earlier in June. But he didn't miss his chance to show RedBull's power on a circuit that, as we know from drivers' debriefs and interviews, isn't exactly of everyone's liking.
COTA has been, for quite some time now, a debating point among the grid because of its complexity and harsh Turns. Some say that they prefer a track like Austin's, like Max and Checo and others argue that their cars are not at their best on circuits like this one, as Lando Norris stated after his session of qualifying.
But nonetheless there wasn't one driver on the grid who didn't give his absolute best to try and put their car in the best position possible.
Saturday afternoon
Following a path of success set out Saturday morning with the Sprint race, the RedBulls were showing exceptional power during the qualifying session for the actual race on Sunday.
And then out of nowhere, topping every corner with the best time and doing an amazing job with tyre management came Lando Norris to steal the show and set his car on pole position.
The British driver later complimented himself on probably having done "his best qualifying lap ever" and it's a statement that is absolutely hard to disagree with. Even though they knew their cars were in a good place, with Oscar Piastri starting fifth, the papaya family stayed low and realistic with their hopes for Sunday, remembering Ferrari's power during quali. In fact, Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc managed to do an amazing job improving the car compared to the Sprint and the practice sessions from Friday. Still, they did their absolute best with race pace and put their cars in third and fourth starting place for Sunday.
As for the Mercedes, things didn't seem to be on their side this weekend. After Lewis Hamilton's shocking exit from Q1, George Russell hardly managed to end his quali in sixth position only to be later demoted to a start from the pitlane.
The rest of the starting grid for Sunday was once again a mixed one, something the public loves to see with Pierre Gasly surprisingly in P7, Alonso in P8, Kevin Magnussen P9 and Checo Perez only starting from P10, therefore completing the top-ten starters for the race.
A red Sunday
So after a busy Saturday, we were back on track for the Race.
Following quali and ahead of the race, Mercedes confirmed Russell's demotion to a pitlane start, followed by a five-place grid penalty for Zhou Guanyu who then had to start all the way back from P18.
The drivers were welcomed by a sunny weather down in Austin, Texas that had already some sort of good omen feeling to it. Everyone lined up on the grid, the tyre blankets came off and we were ready for "Lights out and away we go!"
When the lights eventually went out, Lando Norris had a really good start up until Max Verstappen tried to take advantage of his second position to gain first place. But in doing so, he only forced them both off track, therefore giving Charles Leclerc a clean way to overtake them, becoming the new leader of the race.
The roars were loud in the stands but it was only the first Turn and the race was still long.
Carlos Sainz was showing his power in every way possible, feeling confident enough to attack the dutchman and take second position but he caused Max to go wide. Avoiding any kind of problem with the stewards, Sainz immediately gave him the position back.
Norris in the meantime dropped down to fourth position, ahead of his teammate Oscar Piastri.
All the way back, Lewis Hamilton had managed to arrive in P12 as Esteban Ocon suffered a slight tangle with Alex Albon during the first lap. This strong start from the British Mercedes driver came to an abrupt halt after he spun off track in Lap 3 and parked his car in the gravel, forcing him to retire from the race.
By Lap 5, the Safety Car triggered by Hamilton's incident, drove away and Leclerc was ready to lead the race once again. During the Safety Car Russell had decided to pit but this decision of course, caused him an enormous drop all the way to the back of the grid so now everyone was excited to see if he had the power to make his way up again.
Franco Colapinto and Liam Lawson once again shocking the crowd with an amazing drive from both of the rookies against Russell and Alonso.
Austin's race this year has been a pretty heated disagreement between the teams, the FIA and Race Control because of some of the 5-second penalties that were given out to certain drivers and penalties that should've been given but weren't for some reason. An example of this was Russell's penalty for forcing Bottas off the track to which team principal Toto Wolff responded with "Total joke."
Another driver to receive this penalty was Yuki Tsunoda and even Lando Norris later on by the end of the race.
Focusing on the now, the race was about half way through and a lot of overtaking action displayed on the field. Colapinto easily overtook Alonso, entering the point zone as many of the drivers ahead decided to box.
Leclerc's strategy for an undercut on the McLarens played out wonderfully as for the English team, doubts on the strategy were about to unfold. By Lap 31 the Monegasque overtook Piastri for second place even though the Aussie was yet to pit but Charles was simply hungry to be leader of the race again.
So when Norris finally pitted, Leclerc was back on top and he stayed there until the very end of the race.
With less than 5 Laps remaining, things got icy when Norris was allegedly "pushed out by Verstappen" who had then forced him to go wide. The disagreement came when after Norris went back on track, he didn't give the Dutchman the position back, therefore receiving a 5-second penalty from the stewards. This penalty harshly imposed the Brit to be demoted to P4 by the end of the race, even though he did cross the finish line ahead of Verstappen, who then parked his car in the parc fermé for third place.
"[I'm] very happy," said Leclerc. "It hasn’t been an easy weekend, until now I have been struggling a bit with the feeling with the car but I had the confidence that in the race the feeling was better, and it was the case. We’ve seen it yesterday in the Sprint race, we were a bit… not scared, but we thought the others would improve a lot more today but we still had the upper hand so really happy with today. A one-two for the team, we couldn’t have dreamed for better."
