Antonelli won the United States Grand Prix from pole, 13.078 s ahead of Leclerc, with Verstappen third, 17.485 s back. He made one stop, on lap 24, and led every lap except the seven after it. Every driver who finished on the podium with him, and Hamilton in fourth, stopped twice. The race was dry, 27°C air and a track that cooled from 37°C to 35°C, and it was slowed only by two Virtual Safety Cars, on lap 2 and on laps 51 to 53.
Race trace, full race: every driver's position, lap by lap.
Saturday: pole by 0.179 s
Hamilton topped the last practice on 1:34.893, 0.168 s clear of Verstappen and 0.234 s clear of Leclerc. In qualifying the order changed. Antonelli set 1:34.035 on his first Q3 run with 8 min 34 s to go, and nobody beat it. Verstappen was 0.056 s up on him after the first sector and lost 0.178 s in the second and 0.057 s in the third, so he started second, 0.179 s behind. Hadjar was third, Leclerc and Hamilton improved to fourth and fifth after the flag, and Norris dropped to eighth when his 1:34.379 was deleted for track limits at Turn 19.
The back of the grid was decided by penalties for extra power unit elements: Lindblad five places to 14th, Colapinto to 20th, Bortoleto to 21st. Stroll started from the pit lane after changes made under parc fermé.
Qualifying trace, Q1 to Q3: each driver's best lap stepping down as the clock runs out.
Lap 1 and the first stint
Antonelli kept the lead and Verstappen stayed second. Leclerc got past Hadjar for third and Hamilton followed him through, so Hadjar went from third to fifth on the opening lap. The first VSC came on lap 2, with marshals on track at Turn 11. In that phase Antonelli had the harder tyre of the leading group, mediums against softs for Verstappen, Leclerc, Hamilton and Hadjar. He still pulled away slowly: 2.2 s ahead of Verstappen after lap 1, 2.9 s after lap 13.
Russell, sixth on the grid, was given a 5 s penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage at Turn 13. He served it at his stop on lap 22 and finished eighth. Bearman got 10 s for causing a collision with Gasly at Turn 13, served it at his second stop on lap 22, and retired two laps later.
Verstappen's seven laps in front
Verstappen was the first of the leaders to stop, on lap 13, for another set of softs. He had been 8.1 s ahead of his teammate Hadjar and came out eighth, 10.5 s behind him. On new tyres he closed that gap and passed Hadjar on track on lap 23, two laps before Hadjar's only stop. Leclerc stopped on lap 15 and Hamilton on lap 14, both for mediums.
Antonelli stayed out until lap 24. Before his stop he was 11.6 s ahead of Verstappen. After it he was fourth, 8.2 s behind. The stop cost him about 20 s against a car that was already on 11-lap-old softs. Verstappen led from lap 25 to lap 31, but this part of the race moved in one direction only. On new hards Antonelli took back 6.7 s in six laps, from 8.2 s to 1.5 s behind. Verstappen then made his second stop on lap 31, went to mediums and rejoined fifth, 18.8 s behind. Antonelli led the remaining 25 laps.
Leclerc: 0.6 s, then 24.5 s, then 13.0 s
After Verstappen's second stop Leclerc was second, and at the end of lap 32 he was 0.6 s behind Antonelli. That was the closest anyone got to him on track. Leclerc's mediums were 17 laps old and Antonelli's hards eight, and over the next seven laps the gap grew to 4.7 s. Leclerc made his second stop on lap 39, for hards, and came out fourth, 24.5 s behind.
From there his new hards did the work. He was 15.6 s behind at the end of lap 50, before the second VSC, and 13.0 s behind at the flag, so he took back 11.5 s over the last 17 laps. On the way he passed Norris on lap 47 and Verstappen on lap 49, and he set the race's fastest lap, 1:37.976 on lap 42. Lap for lap the two were close: our pace comparison has Antonelli quicker on 22 of the shared laps and Leclerc on 23. The extra stop, about 20 s, was the difference.
Antonelli against Leclerc: lap times coloured by tyre, with the stints drawn under the title.
The same plan, one lap earlier
Hamilton ran the same soft, medium, hard plan as Leclerc and made each stop one lap earlier, on laps 14 and 38. He was third from lap 32 to lap 38. His second stop dropped him to sixth, and he spent the last 18 laps on hards closing on Verstappen's mediums. He passed Norris on lap 51 and finished fourth, 1.0 s behind Verstappen. Verstappen's mediums held their pace: he lost 1.5 s to Antonelli over the last 25 laps.
Norris got furthest on one stop: mediums for 16 laps, then hards for 40. He was second from lap 40 to lap 46, while the two-stoppers were on their third sets, and then Verstappen and Leclerc passed him on lap 47, and Hamilton on lap 51. He went from eighth on the grid to fifth. Piastri ran the same plan one lap earlier and finished seventh, 22.2 s behind him. Hadjar ran soft then hard, one stop, and finished sixth, from third on the grid.
The back of the field
Bortoleto started 21st and finished 13th, the biggest climb of the race. He ran soft, hard, soft, with the last stop on lap 50 for a set of softs for the final five laps, and passed Ocon on lap 54. Stroll started from the pit lane and finished 15th, one place ahead of his teammate Alonso, who started 12th. Colapinto retired after 35 laps and Bottas after 48. The second VSC, on laps 51 to 53, came with marshals on track at Turn 10. Race control's messages in our feed do not give the cause of either retirement or of the VSC.
What it means
It is Antonelli's ninth win in 18 rounds. He has 365 points, 123 more than Russell, with five rounds left. Behind him the fight for second is close: Russell 242, Hamilton 241, Verstappen 236, Leclerc 233. Leclerc's 18 points in Austin brought him to within nine of second.
One limit applies. Our timing data shows when each car stopped and what it cost, not why a team chose one stop or two.