Austin’s Formula 1 race was not an instant classic, but a great deal of the ingredients for one were clearly present. Four teams were relatively closely matched, and all three tyre compounds came into play as strategies unfolded.
Still, the Circuit of the Americas could not derail the 20-year-old who now appears all but certain to make history in next Sunday’s Mexico City Grand Prix.
Winner: Kimi Antonelli
With Lewis Hamilton and George Russell only just managing to keep their theoretical title contention alive, Kimi Antonelli delivered a near-perfect performance in Texas that was difficult to beat.
Hamilton and Russell would both have needed to win in Mexico, a scenario that our calculations deemed effectively impossible. Even if one of them did win on the Mexico City plateau, Antonelli would only need to salvage a point or two to become Formula 1’s youngest ever champion by three years, surpassing Sebastian Vettel.
Toto Wolff called Antonelli’s victory in Austin his best, resisting early pressure despite starting on the slower medium tyre before calmly controlling the race. He and Mercedes followed their planned one-stop strategy, and strategic gamesmanship from rivals made little difference.
Wolff admitted that he allowed himself euphoria in the aftermath, perhaps overlooking Antonelli’s sensational comeback win on home soil in Monza, which led to rare scenes of Ferrari fans cheering a Mercedes driver.
As for the title celebration, Mercedes had already prepared T-shirts, confetti and gallons of bubbly that may now have to be moved to Mexico City. Perhaps that is wise. The drinking age in Mexico is 18 rather than 21.
Mercedes garages before the start of the race, as media gravitate towards champion-elect Antonelli
Photo by: Filip Cleeren
Loser: George Russell
All joking aside, Russell has reached a new low in recent races, and it is difficult to pinpoint exactly why. If Antonelli is intrinsically quicker or better, as evidence is beginning to suggest, Russell is still not far off the Italian’s pace. Something else appears to be at play.
One theory centres on Mercedes’ Malaysia upgrade, which made the car faster but harder to exploit and place within its optimal performance window. It may have affected Russell more than Antonelli. Whenever the Mercedes W17 did not do exactly as he wanted, Russell seemed to fall off a cliff more easily than his less experienced counterpart.
“Six good laps, 50 bad laps. I want to understand why the pace was so bad on the first stint,” Russell lamented after finishing eighth, stuck behind an equally struggling McLaren driver Oscar Piastri.
“There are signs that the set-up window is very small. I hope that’s an explanation for my lack of pace today, but I need to dig deep with my team because it’s difficult to understand when you’re so far off.”
With Russell set to lose second place to Hamilton, the main priority for the Briton is to stop the bleeding and find workable solutions before heading into the off-season in a better place than he is in now.
Winner: Charles Leclerc
A fortnight ago, Leclerc was criticised for his cautious start in Singapore, when he had a potentially race-defining opportunity to pass Max Verstappen into Turn 1 but backed out of it.
Whether that missed chance played on his mind or not, there was little hesitation in Austin as Leclerc deftly manoeuvred around the Dutchman through the sweeps of COTA’s magnificent first sector.
“Yeah, that was fun,” Leclerc said. “I didn’t really know how it would go. It was quite close, but it was fun.”
He and Ferrari made up for another qualifying session that did not yield the expected result with a stronger race, and Leclerc was able to pass Verstappen again in the final third of the race as he banked a tyre life advantage.
Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen battled wheel-to-wheel at the start of the Austin showdown
Photo by: James Sutton / LAT Images via Getty Images
Loser: Isack Hadjar
Isack Hadjar snatched a great result in qualifying despite a difficult weekend, but his race swiftly unravelled on Sunday.
“I’m just watching my race start,” he said. “Everything was perfect in terms of procedure and then I had a clutch overdelivery. And these things that are just out of my control, it’s starting… I have poor radio coverage, I can’t hear what’s happening. And I hit the pits with the wrong map and… I’m losing a second on every lap on that hard tyre.”
As he slumped to finish sixth from third on the grid, Hadjar’s frustrations became evident on the radio, bringing back flashes of that old hothead in F2.
The radio issues meant some instructions were missed, such as the pivot to a hard tyre, which caught Hadjar by surprise. The end result was a lost opportunity to be on the podium through various issues outside of the Frenchman’s control, negating some of the excellent work done to recover from a tough Friday.
“The pace was good today, that’s the hard part of it,” he summed up. “We nailed it. And all the little, stupid things we can’t. We need to nail them as well.”
Liam Lawson was one of the stand-out performers in Austin
Photo by: Visa Cash App Racing Bulls
Winner: Liam Lawson, Racing Bulls
Liam Lawson’s United States Grand Prix weekend is one to remember, hitting the right notes on tricky terrain that left him out of his comfort zone. But enough about his live debut as a singer-songwriter on Thursday night. His on-track performance was nothing to scoff at either.
Lawson extended Racing Bulls’ run of consecutive points finishes to six with a controlled drive to ninth, as the Anglo-Italian team proved to be the best of the rest ahead of Alpine and Audi.
After several sixth-place finishes, Racing Bulls is well on its way to improving and securing its best-ever constructors’ championship result, with its 102 points leading Alpine by 33. The latter will need a repeat of its double podium miracle at the 2024 Brazilian Grand Prix to turn the tide.
Loser: McLaren
Lando Norris, McLaren
Photo by: Alex Slitz / Getty Images
Lando Norris’ cynical, almost bitter reluctance on the team radio towards the end of the race showed what it is like to go from having the fastest car for much of the past two seasons to being fourth fastest. It is no fun. “Do whatever you want with the strategy”, is a basic summary as Norris tried to hang onto a podium spot on worn hard tyres.
It was a gamble worth pursuing and did not change much to the final result as he took fifth. Once out of the car and refreshed, Norris was a bit milder. At the end of the day, McLaren is not miles away, as F1 2026’s four top teams are surprisingly closely matched during the first year of all-new regulations. Norris even optimistically felt he could have salvaged a front-row start with a better qualifying lap. For a reigning world champion, that does not make the sudden absence of success easier to take.
Meanwhile, Piastri’s struggles with the 2026 car continue. It should come as no great surprise there were few signs of progress in Austin, as it had already been one of his weakest circuits in 2025 when the car was generally more to his liking. Mexico, where sliding is also very common at altitude on the low-grip track, will likely be another tough watch for Australian fans.