The Circuit of the Americas hosted the loud roars of the V6 Hybrid engines racing around the stars and stripes laden track from Oct. 17-20. The U.S. Grand Prix was round 19 out of 24 for the 2024 Formula 1 World Championship and held in Austin for the 12th year in a row.

The Austin GP was also the fifth sprint location from the six total this year. It followed the new sprint format introduced before the start of the season. The new format replaces the two practice sessions, with the Sprint Qualifying taking place of FP2 on Friday afternoon and the Sprint Race taking place instead of FP3 on Saturday. The new format has also made the sprint a 100 km dash to the chequered flag with no pit stops required unless repairs are needed.

During sprint qualifying on Friday afternoon the battle for pole was a close call between George Russell and Max Verstappen. Russell set the fastest lap of the session with only one minute to go, but Verstappen beat Russell for the front spot of the grid by 0.012 seconds. The second row was taken up by Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris. Two of the biggest shock exits were Oscar Piastri of Mclaren getting knocked out in SQ1 and Sergio Perez of Red Bull in SQ2.

On Saturday afternoon, Verstappen led the whole 19 laps of the sprint race. Even though Norris continued to gain on him and rapidly moved from P4 to P2 he was unable to pass Verstappen. Ultimately, Norris got overtaken by Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari due to a lockup towards the end. Holding on to his pole, Verstappen was victorious for the first time since June and also widened the gap in points for the WDC.

Saturday evening during qualifying, Lewis Hamilton was the shock exit of Q1 who was knocked out along with both the Sauber’s of Zhou Guanyu, and Valterri Bottas along with Liam Lawson and Franco Colapinto. The Q2 knockouts were Yuki Tsunoda, Nico Hulkenberg, Esteban Ocon, Lance Stroll and Alex Albon. Moving on to Q1 the Mclaren’s were setting consistent times which then led to Lando Norris taking his seventh career pole position and beat Verstappen to pole narrowly.

As the five lights went off on Sunday afternoon, Verstappen and Norris were both overtaken by Charles Leclerc in fourth position who then took the lead of the race. Leclerc continued to build the gap to eight seconds until he pitted for a set of hards and rejoined in third position. Both the Ferraris opted for the one-stop strategy and got the undercut on the Mclarens successfully.

Whereas, a little further in the back Verstappen and Norris were battling for the final step of the podium. Norris continued to close the gap to under three seconds till he got under DRS range. After persistent battle between the two, Norris went wide in turn 12 and overtook Verstappen off track on lap 52. The incident was quickly noticed by the stewards and earned Noriis a five-second time penalty.

In the penultimate laps of the race, Leclerc was comfortably in an eight second lead and crossed the line to claim his eighth career victory. Ferrari also gained their first 1-2 in the United States since 2006. It also proved to be a positive day for Liam Lawson as he earned a P9 finish in his first race back for RB. Similarly, Franco Colapinto also displayed a strong performance ending up in the points with P10; only narrowly missing out on fastest lap, with Ocon snatching the additional point from Williams.

After Austin and Mexico, Verstappen is still in the lead of the driver’s championship with 362 points, but Norris is only a short gap away standing in second place with 315 points. For the constructor’s, however, Mclaren still leads comfortably at the top of the table, but Ferrari overtook the reigning champions after another double podium in Mexico with a 25 point lead. Next up in Formula 1, is the Brazil GP starting Nov. 1 to Nov. 3 to finish off the triple header.