Austin’s Formula 1 race was no instant classic, which was somewhat unfortunate because a lot of the ingredients were there. Four teams were relatively closely matched, and all three tyre compounds were in play to prompt a battle between different strategies.
But there was little the Circuit of the Americas could throw at winner Kimi Antonelli to unsettle the 20-year-old as he is now all but guaranteed to write history next Sunday in Mexico.
Winner: Kimi Antonelli
With both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell only just doing enough to stay in theoretical title contention, one can’t get much closer to sealing the deal than Antonelli did in Texas.
Both Hamilton and Russell would have to win in Mexico next week, which according to our mathematical calculations is not possible, and even in the event that one of them does win on the Mexico City plateau, Antonelli will only need to salvage a point or two to become F1’s youngest ever champion by three whole years, succeeding Sebastian Vettel.
Toto Wolff declared Antonelli’s win in Austin his best, resisting early pressure despite starting on the slower medium tyre and then simply controlling affairs, unperturbed by strategic gamesmanship as he and Mercedes stuck to their planned one-stopper.
In all his euphoria, Wolff may have forgotten about Antonelli’s sensational comeback win on home soil in Monza, leading to the rare scenes of Ferrari tifosi cheering on a Silver Arrow.
As far as Antonelli’s title celebration is concerned, Mercedes pre-made t-shirts, confetti and gallons of bubbly will now have to be moved to Mexico’s capital. Perhaps it’s for the best. 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 sunk to a new low in recent races and it’s hard to figure out exactly why. Even if you believe Antonelli is intrinsically the quicker or better driver, of which evidence is starting to mount, Russell isn’t miles off the Italian’s pace either, so something else is going on.
One theory is that Mercedes’ Malaysia upgrade, which made the car faster but also harder to exploit and get into the optimal performance window, has somehow affected Russell more than Antonelli. Once the Mercedes W17 doesn’t do exactly as he pleases, Russell appears 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 also set to lose second to Hamilton at this point, the main priority for the Briton is to stop the bleeding and find some workable solutions to head into the off-season in a better place than he is 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 polesitter Max Verstappen into Turn 1 but backed out of it.
Whether that missed chance played on his mind or not, there was little hesitance in Austin as Leclerc deftly swooped around the outside of 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 didn’t yield the expected result with a stronger race, and 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 what had been a difficult weekend until that point, 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 issues were so frustrating that he gradually lost his cool over the radio, bringing back flashes of that old hothead in F2.
The radio hiccups meant some things were lost, like 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 that had been 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, with COTA another event where the Anglo-Italian team proved to be best of the rest ahead of Alpine and Audi.
After several sixth-place finishes, Racing Bulls is well on its way to going one better and secure its best-ever constructors’ championship result, its 102 points now leading Alpine by 33 points. 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’s like to go from having the fastest car for much of the past two seasons to being fourth fastest. It’s 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 didn’t change much to the end result as he took fifth. Once out of the car and refreshed, Norris was a bit milder. At the end of the day, McLaren isn’t 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 doesn’t make the sudden absence of success easier to take, though.
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.
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