“It’s the kid in America, ooowoah!”
I’d call this Part 2 of a double-header but we only got one actual race out of it, so… I dunno. You at home be the judge. Anyway, time for me to sit down and review F1’s second trip to America for their proper United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. Where if I’m honest… There’s not a huge amount to talk about beyond Kimi Antonelli putting one hand and four fingers on the Championship. Let’s talk about it.
American Made
I was genuinely curious heading into this one, as I thought this was the sort of track where there are a lot of different points where these cars could make their money over the course of the lap. Ferrari’s good mechanical grip and being quick in Sector 3 with all the 90 degree, street-track-esque corners. Mercedes and Red Bull’s excellent deployment and medium corner speed in Sectors 1 and 2. McLaren… we’ll get to them.
And to be fair, in qualifying at least, it was pretty close. Kimi Antonelli took pole ahead of Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar’s career best qualifying result in third. Ferrari looked really promising in practice, but a Q3 that was colder than they anticipated and another bout of losing time on the straights resigned them to fourth and fifth. Lando Norris had a time that would have put him on the second row but track limits chalked it off the board.
And then the second bit of hope kicked in. The fact that Max Verstappen had saved two sets of soft tyres for the race, suggested he was going to run a 2-stop strategy. The big problem with that though, was a different kind of rough start off the line. Charles Leclerc was able to hang it around the outside of Max at Turn 4 heading into the complex corner-sequence, due to the car having deployment problems. But Max was able to quickly get Charles back in Sector 3 taking the narrower line through 15 and 16. But by that point, he was already 2.5 seconds behind Kimi Antonelli and couldn’t make any inroads on that gap despite being on the soft tyre compared to Kimi’s medium.
Both Max and the Ferrari’s switched to two-stoppers early on, and while Max was able to eat into Kimi’s lead on the undercut, Kimi was able to extend his mediums to Lap 24 and turn his race into a very simple (and likely optimal) 1-stopper. And Max never really had an answer for that, if anything his race felt very Ferrari-esque for 2026 in the sense that his tyres kept failing right towards the end of his stint. It was a hyper-aggressive strategy of going Soft-Soft-Medium, but he couldn’t utilise the extra pace, and the Hard was the better race tyre at the end of the race.
That was proven by a very respectable drive by Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari. They two-stopped with a more conservative hard tyre stint and he was butchering Max in the final 15 laps, as often as two seconds a lap. It led to a fun sequence where Max could finally pass Lando Norris after being stuck behind the 1-stopping McLaren on older hard tyres wearing out, while Charles Leclerc was attacking him from behind at the same time. Leclerc would win that fight for a comfortable second, while Max did enough to hold teammate Lewis Hamilton at bay on the final lap for the last spot on the podium.
But at the front, Kimi Antonelli was completely untouchable, winning by nearly 14 seconds and made it look easy out there. Could go longer than everyone else, maintain greater pace than everyone else, and sat back while literally everyone else tripped over each other. The scary thought – This was his 9th win of the season, and he’s already overtaken Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri’s total win counts, as well as teammate George Russell’s 8. It’s scary how he’s likely ending the year with double-digit wins after less than 50 starts with a World Championship almost certain alongside. Anything other than a Russell victory or Kimi in ninth, seals it in Mexico. Tequila!
The latter had another tough day in eighth, picking up a five-second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage on the opening lap against the Aussie (It looked marginal to me, harsh call), and that stop put him behind Piastri on the road, and unless you’ve got a big delta, passing is still at a premium in Texas. A race-ruiner given track position and another horrible round for the man who entered 2026 as favourite for the title. Man…
Not Really A Lightning Round
Wanted to shine a little light on COTA itself, something that F1 won’t do. I’m not normally an infrastructure hater, but that new paddock club and car-park building at the top of Turn 1 with the cable car system is ghastly. Ruined a beautiful view of the top of the hill. It goes hand-in-hand with some baffling decisions that track has taken, such as installing noise limits due to a new theme park on site, reduction in track days for the local community unless they’re members, and more. Highly recommend following friend of the show and #1 “parshe” enthusiast Stef Schrader who has been rightly beating the track management over the head about this for months.
Also, a horrendous look for F1 that Sophie Cunningham was on the chequered flag. For those of you who don’t know, she is a bench warmer for the WNBA’s Indiana Fever. It’s mildly embarrassing enough as is for the sport that this was the best women’s sports representation they could get on the flag (Alisha Palmowski, newly crowned F1 Academy Champion was at the track by the way, if you wanted to even pretend you give two shits).
But that barely scratches the surface given the only way she’s getting this kind of gig is acknowledging her recent transition into MAGA-Grifter ala Riley Gaines, playing the classic “protecting women’s sports” dogwhistle to try and mask her massive transphobia. I’ve been saying as far back as Jamie Chadwick’s Caitlyn Jenner endorsement a few years ago, that if you truly cared about Women’s Sports, there’d be a far bigger list of issues (Pay gap, bad faith media attention, big disparities in participation at youth level, internal and external abuse from grifters like Enes Freedom and Clay Travis, etc), before talking about the “boogeyman” topic of a trans athlete wanting to compete against women, a non-existent “threat” across almost all of professional sport.
Yes, she was only on screen for a handful of seconds, and you could argue she’s not worthy of the attention. I disagree. More people need to be using our platforms to tell women like her to fuck off. F1 can very easily do better (She likely got the gig off the back of CAA Management, who are partnered with the sport and do a lot of promotions for F1 in America), and by using her for clout, it’s a spit in the face to the trans community, who should be a part of this sport just as much as everyone else is.
PS: And Ted Cruz can fuck off too. At least the fans in Austin rightly let him have it. Shoutout to Crofty for the zinger of “Mid-terms coming up, the fans are voting with their voice”. He’s come a long way from using Donald Trump as a pun to celebrate Lando’s first win in Miami.
Speaking of McLaren – Lando Norris drove the nuts off a car he’s said is the worst he’s felt in F1, to finish 5th on the winning strategy. It says a lot about where McLaren are at right now. This track should have been a happy hunting ground for the team, but ever since Baku and their last update package, they’ve been the clear fourth best team on the grid, and they’re likely to finish in the Constructors there this year. Given they were a 14-win team in 2025, this is a hugely disappointing season where normally their greatest strength – In-season development, has completely evaded them. They need to be thinking about 2027, not likely making more tweaks to get them back on track right now. Rough, rough times at Woking for the first time since the pandemic.
Fernando Alonso having the best fight of the race with Alex Albon only to complain about the state of the midfield after the fact is so jarring, man. He bores me finding something new to moan about every week.
Alpine, currently stuck in the “finding out” phase of what happens when you’re so quick to embrace Jeremy Clarkson as a part of your team’s fanbase.
Also, dear Ferrari – Do you lack the confidence to even think about a 1-stopper here? They had the most genuine pace they’ve had for a hot minute, shocked they didn’t even consider it.
The Verdict: 4/10 (Poor) – I was originally going to score this a 5, but I took a point off because I don’t like being pissed off when I watch racecars. If you don’t like it, read another blog. This had the potential to be an interesting strategy race but Red Bull had a rare sloppy day and Antonelli was back to his best. So much for the dodgy setup window. See you in Mexico. 🏳️⚧️
