The lights at the Circuit of the Americas had just gone out when Hamilton made the perfect start and raced from 2nd past Verstappen to 1st place. Verstappen tried to close the door, but was lucky that he was not knocked further away when he came out of the first corner.
With Hamilton ahead of Verstappen, Red Bull devised an aggressive racing strategy. Verstappen was the first of the two tenors to enter the pits. A tactical joust followed.
For a moment, Mercedes seemed to opt for a one-burner strategy, but they didn’t. Both Verstappen and Hamilton eventually pitted twice, but Hamilton did so eight laps later than the Dutchman. With fresher rubber in the final phase, Hamilton hoped to provoke a real race duel in the final laps.
It had all the appearance of that, but it became a nail-biter without an absolute climax. Hamilton narrowed his gap lap after lap after a fantastic race, but on the very last lap he just didn’t get close enough to make an attack.
Verstappen can be proud of his eighth victory of the season and is 6 points extra on his British rival. The difference is now 12 points.
Sergio Perez was third. Charles Leclerc fourth ahead of Ricciardo and Bottas. In the battle between Ferrari and McLaren Sainz also finished in seventh place just ahead of Norris.
After the race, Max Verstappen was of course very pleased with his race and the strategy of his team. “Because I lost first place at the start, we had to try something different. We decided to go for a super aggressive strategy. I wasn’t sure it would work.”
He went in twice considerably ahead of Hamilton for new tires. “It was a logical decision. That’s why we came for it every time. It meant that I had very few tires left at the end of my second stint. I had to keep it up. It turned out just well enough.”
