AUSTIN – Three-time and current Formula One world champion, 26-year-old Dutch driver Max Verstappen won first position for the 15th time during the 2023 season in Austin last Sunday.
Verstappen won the 56-lap race despite having started in sixth position and having complained about his car’s brakes multiple times throughout the race. Scoring 25 points, he started the race with medium tires, changed to another set of mediums during his first pit stop, and ended the race with a set of hard tires after his second pit stop.
The United States Grand Prix at Austin, Texas was the 19th round of the 74th Formula One World Championship. There are 10 teams competing with two drivers each, each man driving under their national flag. Red Bull Racing currently holds the Constructors championship at 704 points ahead of Mercedes, who only have 358 points.
Second position went to seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton from Mercedes, who scored 18 points and started from third position. Hamilton spent the entire race chasing after Verstappen and 23-year-old Lando Norris from McLaren, who started from second position and was race leader for a good chunk of the beginning of the race, ending in third position and having scored 15 points.
Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz started and ended in fourth position, scoring 12 points. Sainz finished ahead of Red Bull’s Sergio ‘Checo’ Perez, who ended in fifth position after starting from ninth and scored 10 points, keeping him as No. 2 on the overall championship standing behind his teammate Verstappen and ahead of Hamilton.
The fastest lap of the race (1:38.139) went to Yuki Tsunoda from AlphaTauri, who started from 11th position and ended in 10th, managing to score two points.
Esteban Ocon from Alpine retired from the race on lap six after a minor collision with McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who retired from the race on lap ten. Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso also retired for the first time during the 2023 season on lap 49 due to floor damage to his car.
Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) president Mohammed Ben Sulayem presented the awards for the top three positions alongside Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
The 20th round of the 2023 F1 season will be in Mexico City, Mexico on October 29th, where fans hope to see Checo Perez, the only Latin American driver in Formula One, win a podium position.
NOTE: Following a post-race inspection of their cars, Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who had finished sixth position after starting in first, were disqualified from the United States GP due to plank irregularities that count as technical infringements. Both drivers lost all their scored points and everyone else moved up positions.
