First reaction: F1 top three as Kimi Antonelli wins in Austin

Kimi Antonelli moved to within two points of the F1 World Championship title with a dominant drive at the United States Grand Prix. 

The top three finishers react to an entertaining race at the Circuit of the Americas as Charles Leclerc mounted a late charge for victory.

F1 top three react after United States Grand Prix

Kimi Antonelli led the majority of the laps in the United States as he cruised to a ninth victory of the season.

“It was the result we needed,” said the Italian.

“To be fair, and the whole team deserved it so much. And, all this time, putting so much work into bringing this new package and finally seeing the result is very pleasant.

“It was also perfect execution from strategy to call the one-stop, and yeah, I’m really happy that we made the stick. And today was a great team effort.”

Asked about his thoughts on his position in the championship race, Antonelli added: “I know we’re very close, but yeah, we try to finish on a high, and hopefully we can clinch it very soon.”

Charles Leclerc finished second for Ferrari, having battled back after making a late second stop.

“It was quite a good race,” said Leclerc.

“Unfortunately, we came short of the victory, which is eventually our target. But at the end of the day, it was a positive, a positive race.

“We had a good pace. The first stint was a little bit more difficult. Kimi went for a one-stop, which was not really on our cards to be honest today.

“But we were in the race with Max, and we had good pace. It was a fun race with quite nice battles at the start, and then later on with Lando [Norris] and Max [Verstappen].”

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Referencing his pass on Verstappen, Leclerc said: “It was quite tricky, but I enjoyed it.

“Then I ended up with a little bit less battery and it was a bit difficult to protect from Max.

“But then I knew I had quite a good feeling with the car, so I knew we had pace to keep fighting later on, which we did. So it’s a good race overall.”

With Antonelli winning, even third place was not enough to keep Verstappen in the championship hunt, with only Lewis Hamilton and George Russell now holding a mathematical chance of denying the Italian.

“I think our overall pace was not good enough, and then probably also the tyres that we had available were probably not the right ones.

“So it’s something that we have to understand because I think the last few races it was always working well for us. So for whatever reason it didn’t work out here, but we still managed to get on the podium.

“Maybe a little bit lucky with the VSC at the end, but I take it.”

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