Leclerc leads Ferrari 1-2 as penalty drops Norris behind Verstappen

Charles Leclerc claimed his third win of the season with victory at the United States Grand Prix over Carlos Sainz for a Ferrari 1-2, as Lando Norris lost out on third with a five-second penalty in a fierce battle with Max Verstappen.

The Monegasque gathered a swift start and pounced on the battling front-row duo of Max Verstappen and Lando Norris, cutting back down the inside of Turn 1 and escaping through the sweeping corners with the lead.

He immediately gathered a 1.6-second lead at the end of the first lap to ward off the threat of Verstappen with DRS, as the Dutchman had benefitted from a conservative approach from Norris into the first corner to pick up second.

Leclerc then had to defend from Verstappen after a safety car brought out midway through the third lap, caused by Lewis Hamilton spinning off at Turn 18 and beaching his Mercedes in the gravel to cap off a torrid weekend.

Although Verstappen stuck with Leclerc on the restart, the Ferrari driver covered off the Red Bull through the Turn 2-8 complex of corners to ensure there was no threat from behind.

Having gone long into the race on a one-stop, which proved to be the most popular strategy, Leclerc emerged from the pits after his lap 26 stop behind the long-running McLarens as Norris and Oscar Piastri sought to gather a tyre offset into the final stages of the race.

Leclerc resumed the lead once the McLarens stopped, but this was now over team-mate Carlos Sainz; the Spaniard had successfully batted away an earlier power issue to stay with Verstappen and then undercut the Red Bull with a stop four laps sooner.

Sainz occasionally ate into Leclerc’s lead, cutting a seven-second advantage down to under six seconds, but Leclerc had the legs over Sainz in the final laps and cemented his victory from fourth on the grid.

But the box-office action emerged in the battle for third, where Verstappen’s struggles on the hard tyre and Norris’ pace on a six-lap younger set of white-walled Pirellis pitted the two into a breathless battle for the final step on the podium.

Norris cut down a six-second advantage and got within DRS range of Verstappen by lap 45, setting up a series of attempted overtakes as their championship battle manifested brilliantly on track.

But Verstappen’s defence was excellent and he kept Norris contained; Norris struggled to get within the half-second needed to make a real attempt to pass on the back straight and into Turn 12.

It all boiled over on the 52nd lap, where Norris tried to make a move on Verstappen down the outside – but both drivers went wide and Norris passed off-track to sit ahead. Hoping to cover off the threat of a five-second penalty, Norris tried to drop Verstappen but only built up an advantage of 4.1 seconds.

The stewards duly docked Norris the five seconds for passing off-track, ensuring Verstappen made it onto the podium by just 0.9s.

Piastri was a further 1.5s behind Norris in the final race times to collect fifth, 34 seconds clear of George Russell – who converted a pitlane start in the wake of his qualifying crash into sixth, thanks to a late pass on Sergio Perez.

Nico Hulkenberg took eighth to ensure Haas could put two points between it and RB in the fight for sixth in the constructors’ championship, although Liam Lawson celebrated his return to F1 with ninth place with the contra-strategy of starting on hards.

Franco Colapinto collected the final point having also benefitted from starting on the hard tyre, eight seconds ahead of Magnussen – whose impressive race was undone by having to stop twice.