US GP data reveals Max Verstappen miracle against McLaren

Max Verstappen finished a very respectable third in the US Grand Prix, surviving a late overtake from Lando Norris after a dubious five-second penalty.

Ferrari also achieved an incredible 1-2 thanks to great and a good strategy from Carlos Sainz.

How a thrilling United States Grand Prix unfolded

With no surprises at the top of the grid, all drivers starting inside the top 10 started the race on new medium tyres. This way, they could either commit to the initial one-stop plan by fitting the hard tyre or change to a two-stopper with another set of medium tyres available.

The US Grand Prix race was a good battle of pace, tyre management and strategy between the top three teams. Each of them played their cards differently, but efficiently within the reality of their opportunities and changing their initial race plans after a start that quickly altered the order.

Ferrari were smart in controlling the pace at the front from the start, as Charles Leclerc managed to take the lead into the first corner, taking advantage of the early duel between Verstappen and Norris. The Monegasque driver braked early, but when he saw that the inside line was free, he made an easy manoeuvre to get good traction and take P1.

In turn, Sainz also gained a position, leaving Norris in P4 and leaving Verstappen in the middle of an ‘Italian sandwich’, where he found himself being the ham. In this way, Ferrari was in the best position in terms of strategy execution for the first phase of the race.

After the Safety Car caused by Lewis Hamilton on lap 3, Leclerc quickly opened up enough of a gap to keep Verstappen out of the DRS zone and avoid possible belligerence from the Dutch driver in the opening laps. Sainz was keeping the Red Bull driver at bay while McLaren was dropping in the time sheets.

However, McLaren’s pace was quite striking in these first 10 laps. Both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were losing quite a lot of time in Sector 1 to Ferrari and Red Bull, interestingly the sector that is most damaging to the front tyres in the fast ‘S’ corners.

It was clear that the Woking team had in mind to run a one-stop strategy and for that they could not run the risk of suffering a high degradation as it happened to them during the Sprint race.

For his part, Leclerc was able to push in clean air without seriously damaging his lap times and Sainz was able to run at a decent pace behind Verstappen for many laps without overheating his tyres.

By lap 17, Leclerc had already opened up a +7s delta over Verstappen. Sainz was still under +2s ahead of the Red Bull driver. McLaren started to change the pace and both Norris and Piastri started to set their personal best lap times up to that point.

On lap 22, after a change of pace with the intention of entering Verstappen’s attack zone, Sainz pitted to fit the hard tyre and started an undercut attack against the Red Bull driver.

Ferrari was smart with this move not only in launching the undercut attack, but also in forcing Red Bull to commit to just the one-stopper strategy when it was still undecided at the time whether the two-stopper was a feasible alternative that everyone seemed to have in their papers as a plan B.

Leclerc was still on track, so the Italian team in case a scenario of doubt opened up as to which plan to run – A) one-stopper or B) two stopper -, they could cover themselves in both cases with their two drivers.

However, it was not necessary. Sainz with a brilliant outlap prevented Red Bull from stopping Verstappen on the next lap and thus giving up P2 right away to the Scuderia.

Before his pit stop, Sainz was +2.490s behind Verstappen. The Spaniard’s out-lap, after correcting his time in the first sector for the estimated pit time lost of 20.3s at the COTA circuit, estimates that the undercut effect that occurred in just one lap was approximately 2.4s, i.e. enough for Verstappen to put his P2 at extreme risk if he stopped on lap 23.

Despite this, Verstappen pushed hard to try to reduce the undercut effect. But his front tyres were unable to cope with this change of pace and on lap 26 with Norris also cutting time behind him and Sainz making the virtual gap even bigger, Red Bull pitted the Dutch driver to put on the hard tyre.

Verstappen came out +4.5s behind Sainz making the total undercut effect +6.736s in favour of Ferrari. Undoubtedly, a great move, considering that the Dutch driver’s tyre delta over the Spaniard was only four laps and also, they had gained the track position and could run in clean air thanks to the significant gap that existed between their two drivers in the first two positions of the race.

Leclerc stopped one lap later, on lap 27. This meant that Norris and Piastri were virtually in the top two positions of the race. This was when McLaren took the opportunity again to send out a message: don’t take us out of the equation so soon, we have a plan too.

The Woking-based team started by evidently managing its tyres, but with old medium tyres they managed to run in similar lap times to Leclerc, Verstappen and Sainz, who were already on a fresh hard tyre. In fact, Norris set the second fastest average time during the first stint despite extending it until lap 31.

Norris came out of the pits +6.3s behind Verstappen, who was unable to close the gap to Sainz below +3.5s. With tyres six laps fresher than the Red Bull driver, this time McLaren held nothing back and started the comeback in search of the podium once his hard tyre came up to temperature on lap 35.

On lap 44, Norris entered Verstappen’s DRS zone for the first time. But it wasn’t until lap 47 that the head-to-head battle between the two World Championship contenders for the 2024 season began.

Meanwhile up front, Leclerc controlled the race comfortably without needing to push too hard. Carlos Sainz was doing the same, although trying to push harder to surpass the five-second margin over Verstappen.

Norris tried to overtake without success in another great defensive display from Verstappen. Only on lap 52 was Norris able to execute the overtake at turn 12, but the stewards decided that the manoeuvre had been illegal and penalised the McLaren driver with five seconds added at the end of the race, allowing Verstappen to regain the podium position as Norris couldn’t open a five-second gap at the end of the race by just +0.942s.

Verstappen survived against McLaren once again. Norris and Piastri who, thanks to the tyre advantage over Ferrari and the Dutch driver, were the fastest drivers on track during the second stint.

Verstappen suffered the most from the top five in this final stint and it is almost a miracle that he managed to hold off Norris in his rear-view mirrors for so many laps without being easily overtaken.

In fact, of the top five, Verstappen was, along with Sainz who made a very conservative final lap, the only driver to lose more time to Leclerc after the first stint. The Monegasque driver, thanks to the big advantage he had already achieved in the first stint, was simply managing his tyres and driving calmly without making any driving mistakes.

McLaren had a plan for a podium finish, something that looked difficult to achieve after seeing the pace in the Sprint race of Ferrari and Red Bull. However, the Woking-based team played it smart.

What McLaren didn’t count on was that Verstappen would once again perform a great survival masterclass to hold on to the podium no matter what. In terms of pace during Sunday’s race and tyre management, that podium was clearly in McLaren’s possession.

But Verstappen pulled off yet another excellent display, regardless of the final manoeuvre with Lando Norris, which can certainly have different opinions and assessments.

Nonetheless, the biggest winners of this weekend are undoubtedly Ferrari with an impeccable race execution in both pace and strategy.

Read next: Explained: Why Max Verstappen wasn’t penalised in dramatic Lando Norris battle