Andrea Stella: "We struggled to fully realise the potential of the car this weekend after a disappointing Saturday, so while we were able to secure a podium and some good points, it felt like we under-delivered compared to our potential.
"On Lando's side, the battle with Leclerc meant that he wasn't able to close down Verstappen and challenge for the win. This is something we believe the car was in contention for, and also reaffirms that we can continue to be in the position to fight for victories after some difficult races on circuits that suit our competitors more.
"Looking at Oscar's race, the pace wasn't there today, and he wasn't able to make the progress we had hoped for after a strong start. This is something that we will now review as a team and make sure we come back stronger next week.
"Overall, it wasn't the weekend we wanted. We always aim to come away with a 1-2, and this isn't something we achieved. We must now refocus, improve from our learnings and build on the positives before aiming to have a better weekend in Mexico."
Laurent Mekies: "This has definitely been our strongest weekend in a long while. On a burning hot track, where we have found it tricky here in the past, Max kept extending the gap to his opponents in every session. If you see how tight it was on Friday, even though he was on pole for the Sprint, and then today, it was a substantial improvement. Once again, I want to thank everyone at the track and those back at base, who have been taking risks in terms of pushing everything to the limit, it's uncomfortable, but the work they are doing is unbelievable and it's paying off. They have unlocked so much from the car. We never took anything for granted, ultimately finding more and more performance as the weekend progressed. Max is driving at an incredible level and keeps raising the bar. We are going to continue with our approach for the upcoming races, starting by seeing how we can put the best possible car on track in Mexico. Yuki also enjoyed a strong weekend, especially today when he made up six places in the race, bringing home some useful points to add to those he scored in the Sprint yesterday. Finally, thank you and congratulations to our partners Mobil and Mobil 1 as we celebrate our 75th win together. It's been a strong and successful partnership and we look forward to celebrating many more together."
It was decided to put Charles on an aggressive strategy, the only driver in the top 15 on the grid to start on used Softs, the majority of the field going with the Medium. This allowed the Monegasque to pass Lando Norris for second place going into turn 1. Lewis maintained his fourth place. The Safety Car came out on lap 7 after Carlos Sainz and Kimi Antonelli collided. Charles' pace started to drop as his Soft tyres were suffering, nevertheless he battled hard and intelligently to keep Norris behind up until lap 22 when the Monegasque came in to the pits to switch to the Medium tyres. Charles rejoined in ninth place and began moving up the order, overtaking Nico Hülkenberg then Yuki Tsunoda. Lewis made his only stop for Soft tyres on lap 31. Norris closed on Charles again on lap 38 and a thrilling battle developed which ended in the Englishman's favour on lap 52, dropping Charles to third. The Monegasque recorded his sixth podium of the season, his 49th in total. This was also the Scuderia's sixth podium of the season, its 835th overall. Lewis came home fourth.
Fred Vasseur: It's great to be back on the podium with Charles and to have Lewis in fourth place. It's good for them and great for the team. It's extra motivation for everyone for the rest of the championship. I'm particularly happy with how we were able to fight back after a very difficult start to the weekend. The progress came from fine tuning the car and focussing a lot on the tyres. If you don't get them in the window you can lose five or six tenths and that's what happened to us on Friday. So, I'm proud of the team and how they reacted. Today, the pace was there and we decided to be aggressive with the strategy with Charles to try and be P1 going into the first corner and it worked in part as he gained one place. But now our focus must switch to being back on track on Friday in Mexico and try again.
George Russell finished sixth with Kimi Antonelli P13 in Sunday's United States Grand Prix. George lined up P4 but was pinched on the inside of turn one, losing positions to the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton and the McLaren of Oscar Piastri. The difficulty, for the whole field, in getting close to the car ahead whilst also keeping tyre surface temperatures under control, limited the ability to regain those positions. Despite a three-lap tyre offset after switching from the Medium to the Soft compound, he couldn't trouble Piastri before the chequered flag came. Kimi meanwhile, also running the Medium-Soft one-stop, held his starting position of P7 in the opening laps. He was unfortunate to be turned around by the Williams of Carlos Sainz at turn 15 in the early stages and could only rejoin at the back of the field. He fought back from there but his progressed was halted at P13 and he therefore finished outside of the points. The battle for second in the Constructors' Championship has closed up once again with Ferrari now seven points behind in P3. The team now heads south to Mexico for next week's Mexico City Grand Prix.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO: Not every race can be a classic and that was the case today. There were small pace differences between the top cars today and that, along with the challenge of managing surface tyre temperatures when following closely, made overtaking almost impossible. Unfortunately for us, George lost two positions at turn one and dropped to P6. Kimi was spun around early in the race meanwhile, so we were always playing catch up. I think we had the necessary pace in the car to finish on the podium but once you are behind, there was no chance to pass.
We've got another race next week in Mexico and we will be looking to perform more like we did in Singapore than we have here in Austin. Both Ferrari and Red Bull have regained ground on us in the Constructors' today, so it's important we put in a stronger performance in Mexico City. It's going to be a great battle all the way to the flag in Abu Dhabi.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director: Our race was played out in the very early stages today. George was unfortunate to lose two positions when he got boxed in at turn one whilst Kimi was spun around at turn 15 a few laps later. Those setbacks cemented our finishing positions on a disappointing afternoon. That was due to the difficulty in following the car ahead whilst keeping tyre surface temperatures under control. That was an issue faced by the whole field, but it made regaining positions incredibly challenging.
Fortunately, we have the opportunity to bounce back immediately. We will dust ourselves down and look to perform more strongly in Mexico City. The battle for second in the Constructors' Championship has tightened up once again after today but we're excited to try and build our advantage once again next week.
Andy Cowell, CEO & Team Principal: "We had similar pace to the cars around us in a very tight midfield. Lance raced well from P19 and delivered some great overtakes to finish P12. Another strong opening stint on the Softs [28 laps] brought him up the order as he chased down Liam [Lawson]. It's hard to race here in these hot conditions so it was good to see Fernando score a hard-fought point. Saturday was very challenging so a huge thanks to the garage and the factory for their efforts to get the car race ready. There is still plenty to fight for in the final five races starting in Mexico next week."
Steve Nielsen, Managing Director: "As a team we have a lot to review across the board from this weekend. While our level of competitiveness is still far from being able to score points, it was encouraging to make a small step forward relative to recent events looking at the weekend as a whole. Today, like a lot of teams, we had to adapt our strategy based on the conditions and what we saw on track with the Hard tyre not looking to be a favourable race tyre. On Pierre's side, we covered an undercut threat to box onto Softs, a little earlier than we wanted, and then had a slow pit-stop, which we will review and rectify. Franco was able to extend his Medium run to have a tyre delta towards the end of the race where he caught up to Pierre. We gave the instruction for the drivers to maintain position as we were managing fuel with both cars and the added variable of the number of laps remaining with the leaders in close proximity. As a team, any instruction made by the pit wall is final and today we are disappointed that this didn't happen so it's something we will review and deal with internally."
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team finished with Oliver Bearman ninth, and Esteban Ocon 15th, at the United States Grand Prix, held Sunday at the Circuit of The Americas.
Bearman took the start from eighth position on Pirelli P Zero Yellow medium tires and briefly moved into seventh, before being shuffled down to 10th place amid the jostling in the early phases of the race. A clash between Carlos Sainz and Kimi Antonelli promoted Bearman into eighth, before he pitted on lap 30 for Red soft tires. Bearman chased down Red Bull's Yuki Tsunoda and attempted a move into turn 15 on lap 35, but spun in avoidance of the driver ahead and dropped to ninth. Bearman nonetheless recovered the VF-25 to the track and classified in ninth place, adding two more points to his and MoneyGram Haas F1 Team's season tally.
Ocon started the grand prix from 17th on the grid on White hard tires, and moved up two spots to 15th, settling into a rhythm through the opening stint. Ocon made his sole pit stop on lap 24, exchanging hards for mediums, and moved into 13th place, before falling behind drivers on softer tires in the closing stages. Ocon took the checkered flag in 15th position.
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team holds ninth position in the Constructors' Championship, now on 48 points.
Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal: "Firstly, I want to congratulate everyone's hard work for bringing this update to the track, because we needed it and it worked. The way we raced this weekend, is thanks to that. We all feel slightly disappointed finishing P9, which is the amazing thing because the best result we could've had today was P7. We look ahead now to the next race, we need to bring Esteban up - he's struggling a little bit with a certain feeling in the car, but you can see the potential is there. I don't see any reason, if we address that, why we can't get both cars into the points. It's a good thing we can look at doing that straightaway again next weekend in Mexico."
James Vowles, Team Principal: Part of the reason why I'm in motorsport is you can have some fantastic days with the highest highs, and then just 24 hours later, you can walk away with nothing, as we are today. And that's the reflection of Austin. What's positive to me is we have really strong car pace, and that's one item that we'll carry through for the remainder of the season. But it just highlights that we have to qualify both cars in position towards the point-scoring end of the grid, and we need to ensure we're fighting through the field without contact or incident. I'm sorry for both Carlos and Kimi, both had good race pace today and I'm confident would have scored points, but it is just a part of racing that, as you're trying to overtake through different sections, contact may happen. The stewards have decided to hand Carlos a 5 place grid penalty, there was a sensible conversation however the guidelines are fairly clear on fault allocation. We will come back fighting in Mexico.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen has become the first driver to win seven grands prix in the United States by claiming his fourth win at COTA: one day after claiming the sprint race win. As a result, he is now just 40 points off the championship lead with five grands prix and two sprint races remaining this year.
Like most drivers, Verstappen adopted a medium-soft tyre strategy, which required optimal management on the bumpy asphalt that peaked at 47 degrees centigrade, with gusting winds complicating the task further. Easing the demand on the tyres slightly was an early Virtual Safety Car, which slowed the pace at a critical point with the cars full of fuel.
The key outlier in terms of strategy was Ferrari's Charles Leclerc: the only driver in the top 15 to start on the soft tyre. He used the extra grip to brilliant effect, challenging for the lead from third on the grid - with the soft tyres estimated to gain nearly an extra two metres in the sprint from 0-150kph at the start. To put that in context, there are four metres between each grid slot: so Leclerc's choice of starting tyre gained him the equivalent of nearly half a grid position.
Leclerc was consequently the first of the frontrunners to pit, going from soft to medium on lap 23. He made good use of the yellow tyre to hold second place, before being passed in the closing stages for the runner-up spot after a race-long battle with McLaren's Lando Norris (who was on the faster soft for his second stint).
Verstappen's advantage was such that he was able to make his single stop from medium to soft tyres on lap 33, slightly later than his other rivals, without losing the lead.
All three compounds were seen on the starting grid, with three drivers at the back of the grid selecting the hard tyre. Only two drivers stopped twice: Williams driver Alex Albon and Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto, with everyone else stopping only once.
In a momentous week for American motorsport, it was announced before the start of the race that COTA would remain on the calendar until at least 2034.
Mario Isola: "Today the teams decided to keep their options open at the start, using mainly the medium tyre on the grid, which is the most flexible starting point for a number of different strategies. Leclerc stood out among the top 10, being the only driver to opt for the soft, which gave him an initial grip advantage that paid off.
The early VSC period allowed a few extra laps on both the soft and the medium, with the medium compound in particular showing consistency that was perhaps greater than anticipated. A positive influence on that was the asphalt temperature, which was lower than yesterday, and track evolution. These combined factors allowed the first stint to be stretched for as long as possible.
As a result, the medium-hard strategies that were initially envisaged inevitably turned into a theoretically more audacious strategy once the halfway point of the race had been reached. A succession of pit stops round about lap 30 saw the red tyre used for the final stint on nearly all the cars.
With the rear tyres not reaching maximum wear, the drivers were able to maintain a competitive pace without having to manage them, also thanks to the setups selected by the teams. Congratulations to Max Verstappen, who continues to fight for the title, and to Charles Leclerc for choosing a different strategy to get onto the podium."
