Charles Leclerc produced an exceptional drive to win the United States Grand Prix, leading home a Ferrari one-two 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 – and 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. Just 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.
Carlos 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.
Verstappen had Norris in his rearview mirrors with 14 laps left on the ticker but defended hard. After multiple attempts to squeeze by, the Brit overtook his rival around the outside at Turn 12 but did so off the racetrack.
The stewards took a dim view of this move, handing Norris a five-second time penalty that relegated him back off the podium. Out front, Ferrari were in a league of their own as Leclerc led team-mate Sainz over the line for a one-two finish.
