Verstappen secures 50th win at the United States Grand Prix

Verstappen secures the win after starting 6th on the grid. Post race drama ensues with LeClerc and Hamilton Disqualified.

Max Verstappen clearly enjoys racing in the United States.

Verstappen secured his 15th win of the 2023 season and the 50th of his Formula One career after fighting back from sixth on the grid to take victory at the U.S. Grand Prix.

The victory means he has drawn level with his own record for wins in a season — with four races still remaining — and is now one first-place finish away from tying with Alain Prost for fourth place on the all-time winners’ list.

With the win, Verstappen has won five straight races in the States. In 2022, Red Bull secured the Constructors title at the USGP as well, so clearly Red Bull is making tracks in the states their own.

The recently crowned champion was made to sweat in the final laps of the race as Lewis Hamilton used an alternative strategy to cut his lead to 1.8s at one point on the final lap and cross the line 2.2 seconds behind.

Although Verstappen’s victory never really looked under threat with Hamilton running out of laps to close the gap, Verstappen sounded increasingly stressed over team radio as he pleaded with his race engineer not to talk to him under braking as he was struggling with a brake issue from before the midpoint of the race and at one point called his championship-winning Red Bull a “piece of s—” over team radio.

In the end though it was another win for the already impressive season.

“It feels incredible to win my 50th Grand Prix here in Austin, I’m very proud of course but I want to keep pushing for more,” said Verstappen post race. “Starting in P6 today was interesting, I worked my way slowly through to the front. We didn’t have a massive pace advantage today and I was struggling with my brakes. I didn’t have the same feeling in the car as I did yesterday so that made the race much tougher than anticipated. You could see it was very close at the end and there too. We had to rely on the strategy today and the Team did a great job with that.”

Post Race Disqualifications

After the race, Hamilton’s podium joy would be short-lived, as post race the FIA’s checks found excessive wear to the rear skids on his Mercedes which meant the car did not comply with F1 regulations — the seven-time world champion was disqualified four hours after the finish.

Like Hamilton, Leclerc was also disqualified after the race for an identical infringement.

The skids on the bottom of each of their cars, which are designed to impose a minimum ground clearance for F1 cars, had worn away to the point that they were no longer within Formula 1 regulations.

The result meant Lando Norris inherited second place from Hamilton, while Carlos Sainz was bumped up to the podium. Sergio Perez’s finish is improved to fourth, which has a significant impact on the battle for second place in the drivers’ standings as Hamilton was closing the gap quickly. Red Bull is seeking their first ever 1-2 drivers finish so now instead of only leading Hamilton by 19 points going into the final four rounds of the season, Perez a 39-point advantage.

Hamilton was blunt in his reaction to the news. “It is of course disappointing to be disqualified post-race, but that doesn’t take away from the progress we’ve made this weekend,” he said.

Team principal Toto Wolff was slightly less brief as he held his hands up and admitted the team was at fault. “Set-up choices on a sprint weekend are always a challenge with just one hour of free practice – and even more so at a bumpy circuit like COTA and running a new package. In the end, all of that doesn’t matter – others got it right where we got it wrong and there’s no wiggle room in the rules. We need to take it on the chin, do the learning, and come back stronger next weekend.”

As for the battle for second in the constructors’ championship, Ferrari are 22 points behind Mercedes in the constructors’ championship with four events remaining. Ferrari sporting director Diego Ioverno explained the Italian team’s perspective on the disqualification:

“Austin is a super nice track but is extremely bumpy. Bumpiness is a difficult topic for drivers and cars. In the past, more or less everyone failed their suspension or chassis,” he said. “We knew it would have been tricky and this is the reason why we lifted the car throughout FP1 and from our consideration it should have been OK. As a matter of fact it turned out we were too marginal and also because of the wind that turned direction and had a stronger intensity than forecast, this brought our car to not be legal in the end. There is not a lot to say or at this moment we could have done. With hindsight, rewinding the weekend, we may have lifted even more the car, but would have lost performance and we are here to optimize our own performance.”

Whats Next?

The drivers do not have to wait too long to get back in the car as we head to Mexico next weekend for the second race of the triple header.