Max Verstappen Takes Victory in Action-Packed US GP, Hamilton and Leclerc Disqualified

Photo: Gongora/NurPhoto

The warm Texas weather on the “Circuit of the Americas” track was not the only event that broke the hearts of Latvians. The wide and long first straight of the track in the first seconds of the start created a situation of change of leaders. Likewise, Verstappen was unable to climb higher, a catastrophic collision of the orange and blue formula at the end of the top ten created unprecedented situations this season. This time the “Red Bull” cars were within reach, but did it succeed.

Stage Keys:

Sprint race:

At the start, Max Verstappen “squeezed” Charles Leclair to the very inside of the track as far as the limits of the track allowed. This disrupted favorable trajectories in the following corners for Leclair. In the first corner, not only Verstappen was passed, but also Hamilton; In the sixth lap, Verstappen complained about the poor pace of the formula. In the same lap, Hamilton reported on the radio that he saw the Dutchman drive off the track several times. Clearly, Verstappen and the car were not top quality; George Russell five second penalty for going off track when overtaking Oscar Piastre. It dropped out of the points zone; At the start, Oskar Piastri collided with a competitor in a small but significant way, spoiling the aerodynamic performance of the formula and slowly sliding down position by position; Sainz was the only one who started with the softer compound tires. In the last five laps, defending against Russell became mission central as the tires had lost quality; On lap 17, Stroll’s radio message: “I have to pit, I have no more brakes”. At that time, rolling in 15th place did not have much effect either.

Sunday’s race:

Four drivers started from the pits due to changes in formula details or significant regulations – Magnussen, Hulkenberg, Alonso, Stroll; Everyone started with “medium” tires, Stroll and Hulkenberg with “hard”; This time there was no smell of Verstappen in the first starting positions due to qualifying errors – 1. Leclair, 2. Norris, 3. Hamilton, 4. Sainz, 5. Verstappen; Norris started much better than Leclair, the Ferrari driver could not defend himself and the orange formula left the first corner as the leader; Carlos Sainz also passed Lewis Hamilton at the exit of the first corner. Third place; On the second lap, Ocon was reported to have damage on the side of the formula. They were collected after contact with Piastri in the first straight, at the start; On the third lap, both Russell and Perez passed Ocon in the straight. Okon at the time in ninth place; In the fourth lap, Hamilton regained third position, ‘kicking’ the position back to Sainz; On the sixth lap, Okon was already in last place. The team reported that the damage to the aerodynamic parts was significant, with at least a 20% performance loss; Ocon closed the race on the seventh lap; On lap 10, Guanyu Zhou was the first to pit to change tires. Entered 11th, exited last; In the same lap, Piastri heard the news on the radio that the race had to end, the formula would not be able to finish it. Formula One had a damaged radiator and water leaking out of it after the collision with Ocon. At the time, Oscar was in ninth place; On the 11th lap, the follower train made its first visit to the pits – Albon, Bottas, Magnussen; In the 11th lap, Verstappen passed Leclair – third place. ‘Pushed’ LeClair several meters off the track, but job done; On the 17th lap, the first of the top ten in the pits, Verstappen from the third position. Came back in ninth place; On lap 18, to guard against Verstappen’s “undercut”, both Norris and Sainz, who were ahead of him, pitted; On lap 21, Hamilton pits. The last laps before the tire change were bad (skids, tire locking when braking) and lost several precious seconds to the rest of the leaders. The initial plan was to ride longer with the first set and try a one pit stop strategy. Within a couple of laps the plan was changed. He had let Verstappen pass him on the way back to the track; On lap 28, Verstappen passed Norris and became the leader for the first time; On lap 35, Norris pits for the second time; On lap 36, Verstappen responds with the same. Norris came closer by two seconds in one lap with the “undercut” technique!; On lap 43, after his second pit stop, Hamilton regained third position by passing Leclair; On lap 47, Alonso said the rear shock absorbers had a defect. The team responded that they could see the defects in the floor; On lap 48, Hamilton battled with Norris throughout the lap; Hamilton passed Norris in the first corner on lap 49. Hamilton’s second set of medium compound tires rolled better than Piastri’s first set of harder compounds; On lap 50, Alonso ended the race in the pits; On lap 52, Albon received a five-second penalty for repeatedly not following the track boundaries; In the last five laps, Verstappen’s brakes gave out, the driver himself complained about it on the radio. Hamilton closed by one to two tenths of a second at each corner, but was a couple of laps short of overtaking the champion; Yuki Tsunoda set the fastest lap time of the race on the final lap and finished tenth; Top three finishers: Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Lando Norris. Several hours after the end of the race, Hamilton and Leclair were disqualified for not complying with the rules of the formula floor – the wear of the floor ‘board’ was too great or the formula was installed too low. This allowed the Williams drivers to get into the points, Logan Sargent’s first career point. Norris moved up to second, Sainz into the top three.

Fantasy Power:

Max Verstappen (53 points): Qualifying wasn’t the best, but he got it all back in the race. Took the sprint race fastest lap record (5 points), stolen by Yuki Tsunoda in Sunday’s race; Lando Norris (46 points): Has settled into second best in the second half of the season Fantasy driver and one of the main competitors for second place in the season standings. He earned a good bonus with the driver of the day title (10 points) and finished in the top five in both the sprint and the Sunday race; Sergio Perez (32 points): It must be said that the performance of the Mexican in recent months has been like oatmeal – very uninteresting. Sergio floats in the middle or even the second half of the top ten. Have the manners of the formula really become so foreign to the driver? The next phase of his recovery will hopefully begin at his home; Carlos Sainz (32 points): Didn’t get involved in the fight for the win like his friend Norris, but picked up almost all the best behind them. Sixth place in the sprint race, third place in the Sunday race. Also racked up six overtakings in both races.

F1 Fantasy: Top points scorers at the US GP. #USGP pic.twitter.com/VWEVHV3ljJ

— Latvian Fantasy League (@LatvijasFantasy) October 26, 2023

Fantasy bremze:

Oskars Piastri (-2o points): one does not want to give this status to this driver, because he is actually one of the most capable in the line. But problems in both races, including a retirement in one, made this one of the worst races of the season for either driver. There is nowhere to fall below the ground, keep using him Fantasy as usual.

LFL/F1.LV TOP3:

LV TOP (5608 points): an excellent line-up choice, if a black cat had not run across the track in front of Piastri. Tsunoda took care of the top 5 spots for just $6.9 million; Gulbenes Buki F1 (5577 points): identical amount of points as the leader, so the approach to the leader does not happen again. Only Perez was chosen instead of Sainz. Again, kudos to Tsunoda’s choice of both. Gateris (5566 points): Gateris “pours” into the top three for the first time this season using an identical composition as Gulbene Buki F1, but there is one important nuance. He gave 2x the status to Perez and 3x “connected” the chip to Verstappen. Huge points haul for the team in the stage. Gateris demonstrates the highest class of management.

F1 Fantasy: the top three of the LFL/F1.LV league after the US GP. pic.twitter.com/6hHNEBfizk

— Latvian Fantasy League (@LatvijasFantasy) October 27, 2023

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