How Hamilton battled until he had nothing left at US GP – race analysis

With a dramatic recovery to victory in Austin from a wheelgun failure at his pit stop, Max Verstappen sealed Red Bull its fifth constructors’ championship and its first since 2013.

Verstappen’s struggle was more than just the pit incident, though. Even without it, Lewis Hamilton had been on-course to have passed him at the second stops anyway, courtesy of Verstappen struggling with his tyres and Merc’s aggressive undercut attempt. Verstappen’s in-lap response to Hamilton’s stop wasn’t going to be enough to counter the Mercedes driver’s fresh-tyred out-lap. But ultimately even the failed wheelgun made no difference to the outcome. Once onto the reset of fresh tyres, the Red Bull regained its performance advantage and Verstappen was able to make up all of the lost time and more.

“It was all about the Red Bull’s tyre performance on the restart”

Changing the wheelgun lost Verstappen 9sec and dropped him behind not only Hamilton but Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari too. But what was behind the apparent variation in the Red Bull’s speed through the race, with a super-fast opening stint, a struggling middle one and a fast third?

It was all about the Red Bull’s tyre performance on the restart from eight laps under the two consecutive safety cars. These came between the first and second pitstops of what was always set to be a two-stop race.

This and the safety car’s wiping-out of the 5sec gap Verstappen had built, put Hamilton in a flattering position. The Mercedes was still clearly only the third-fastest car, having qualified around 0.6sec adrift of the leading Ferraris and Red Bulls. Ordinarily that would have put Hamilton and George Russell on the third row of the grid but the PU penalties of Leclerc (10 places) and Perez (five places), plus the first-turn spin of Carlos Sainz’s pole-sitting Ferrari (after contact with Russell’s Merc which pierced the Ferrari’s radiators) put Hamilton into flattering a position, ready to take full advantage of any Verstappen problems.

But although Hamilton’s early position had been artificially boosted, the first stint showed the true competitive picture, with Verstappen pulling away at around 0.4sec per lap, even while looking after his tyres and complaining about a tricky balance in the gusty conditions which brought crosswinds and tailwinds through Turn 1, the Esses and Turns 11 and 12 in particular. The Merc was faster through the Esses but slower everywhere else, especially on the straights.

With an advantage of over 4sec Red Bull was able to leave Verstappen out until a lap after Hamilton made his first pit stop and still emerge comfortably ahead. He had an even bigger gap than that as the safety car came out but that of course was demolished as everyone queued up.

The first safety car was to collect Valtteri Bottas’s Alfa Romeo from the gravel. The restart triggered another safety car as Fernando Alonso’s Alpine got airborne trying to pass Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin on the back straight – leaving the three-wheeled Aston wreckage in the middle of the track as Alonso limped to the pits for a new nose and tyres and rejoined at the back.

“Verstappen had the choice of hards or mediums – Hamilton did not”

At the second restart Verstappen was aggressively pulling away from Hamilton in order to get out of DRS range, which would be enabled after two laps. Hamilton, by contrast, rather than immediately attacking Verstappen just drove to his tyre temperatures while keeping a wary on Perez behind, though the latter was compromised by a front wing damaged at the first turn against Bottas’s Alfa.

In this way Hamilton was able to give his tyres a much more sympathetic warm-up than Verstappen and in a car which is usually generically easier on the rubber during a race stint anyway. After six laps of Verstappen edging away – he got the gap out to 2sec by lap 31 – Hamilton’s tyres were now in better shape and with the second pit stop window approaching, he was able to begin hunting him down.

“Thoughts on compounds Max?” queried his engineer as Hamilton continued to nibble time out of him. “These have no grip,” he replied of the hards. Verstappen had the choice of hards or mediums for the next stint. Hamilton did not – only fresh hards were available.