Formula 1

MAX HOLDS OFF A SURGING LCH TO WIN THE UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX

LCH’s dreams of a record-breaking eighth world championship were dealt a significant blow after he lost further ground in the title race to a triumphant Max Verstappen at the United States Grand Prix.

Hamilton, on fresher rubber than Verstappen, hustled his rival all the way to the line in a thrilling climax – but the Dutch driver held firm to claim his eighth win of the campaign.

Hamilton’s points difference to Verstappen has increased from six to 12, with only five rounds and 130 points available in this year’s ferocious title fight.

Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez finished third ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and the McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo.

Under scorching blue skies, Formula One’s biggest crowd of the season created one of the best pre-race atmospheres of the season at the Circuit of the Americas, 15 miles south of downtown Austin.

And the 140,000 sets of eyes were firmly fixed on the charge to the first corner with Verstappen lining up on pole, and Hamilton second.

When the lights flicked to green, it was Hamilton who reacted fastest. The Briton was three thousandths of a second quicker than Verstappen, and his lightning reactions forced the Red Bull man to take action.

LCH: Firstly, congratulations to Max, he did a brilliant job today. And also, a big thank you to the amazing crowd we’ve had in Austin all weekend, to perform in front of such packed grandstands and passionate fans has been a real honour. I really thought for a second we might be able to win, I gave it absolutely everything out there.

It was such a tough race, but unfortunately, we couldn’t convert it. Red Bull just had the upper hand, and we couldn’t match them. It looked like they had a better and more stable rear end on their car, with less sliding. The start was obviously great and closing the gap towards the end, but I got into the dirty air and the tyres overheated in the last few laps. Thank you to the team for amazing pit stops and so much hard work over the weekend. We didn’t quite get it this time, but we’ll move onto the next one.

MAX: It was an exciting race and it feels incredible to win here in front of all the fans. The pressure was on for the whole race and not knowing how quickly Lewis would catch up. I actually thought I had a decent start, but Lewis had an even better one. So we went for an aggressive strategy after losing the lead into turn one and we pitted early in the first stint.

Then for the middle stint we were in that undercut range, so we had to respond and we went for track position which made the last stint very long, especially in this heat. The last two laps were definitely difficult on the tyres, there wasn’t much grip left. But, then with two laps to go, I had the Haas in front of me and I was able to benefit from the DRS, so we managed to hang on in the end. We definitely gave it our all today as a Team and it was great to have Checo up there with me on the podium.”