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Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc clinched his third F1 US Grand Prix by demoting Lando Norris to fourth place after finishing third on the track ahead of title contender Max Verstappen, who took third place on the podium. The race saw his Leclerc's teammate Carlos Sainz finished second. On lap 53 of the 56-lap race, Norris of McLaren lost five seconds after leaving the track to pass the three-time champion and series leader of Red Bull. As a result, he fell to fourth place.
With five races remaining in the season, Verstappen's lead over Norris has now grown to 57 points in the drivers' championship. Ferrari finished the race one-two thanks to Monaco's native Leclerc, while Spaniard Sainz finished second, 8.562 seconds behind Leclerc's winning pace of 1:35:09.639 at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. In the second Red Bull, Sergio Perez finished eighth, ahead of Franco Colapinto of Williams, Nico Hulkenberg of Haas, and Liam Lawson of RB. This is Leclerc's first American victory, third in the F1 season and his eighth overall, while it was Ferrari's first one-two in the US since 2006.
Not an easy weekend, but was confident of the win: Charles Leclerc
For Leclerc, winning the race wasn't a cakewalk. In an exciting battle for the final podium position in the last lap, Norris made many efforts to overtake his title rival Verstappen, who was half a second ahead of him. “It wasn’t an easy weekend, but I had the confidence in the race,” Leclerc said later in an interview. He added, " We still had the upper hand; we couldn’t have dreamed for better.”
Leclerc, who finished third behind Max Verstappen and Lando Norris—who clashed late in the race in a sequence that resulted in Norris receiving a significant penalty—had also won the Monaco and Italian Grands Prix this year.
"A Momentum Killer" for Norris
For a chance to win the championship, Norris needed to defeat Verstappen by an average of more than eight points per race weekend, and with five rounds left, the task has only gotten harder.
During the post-match interview, Norris mentioned the situation as a "momentum killer". He said, “Quite a bit. It’s a momentum killer. But we came in here with our minds open, not expecting to dominate or just win or anything. The fact that Ferrari was so quick today showed they’re just as competitive." Meanwhile, McLaren stays strong by leading Red Bull by 40 points, but the Ferrari is still in the contention stage.
