The Austin Sprint Marks Another Victory for Verstappen: Checo Pérez Achieves a Meritorious Fifth Place
The Austin Sprint Marks Another Victory for Max Verstappen, and Checo Pérez Achieves a Meritorious Fifth Place; Lewis Hamilton Makes Up Some Positions for Second Place in the Championship.
The Austin Sprint marked another triumph for Max Verstappen, with Checo Pérez securing a commendable fifth place.
Lewis Hamilton managed to gain some positions to move up to second place in the championship standings.
The Austin Sprint started with Max Verstappen leading from start to finish, demonstrating his championship prowess.
Checo Pérez, on the other hand, delivered an outstanding race to cushion the points gap with his closest pursuer in the standings, Lewis Hamilton.
Verstappen successfully defended his first-place position in the Austin Sprint, while Checo Pérez aimed to gain positions after starting in seventh place.
During the first five laps of the race, Hamilton kept within half a second of Verstappen, displaying a strong pace in the Mercedes.
Meanwhile, Checo Pérez initially maintained the seventh position, with George Russell in eighth, recovering the three positions he had lost due to a penalty imposed after the Sprint’s pole position.
Later in the race, Checo Pérez became more aggressive during the Austin Sprint and managed to overtake Piastri after pulling alongside him on the opposite straight and challenging him at the exit of the turn.
Subsequently, Piastri dropped out of the points zone as Pierre Gasly overtook him to claim eighth place.
Charles Leclerc was more than three seconds behind Hamilton, and he maintained a similar gap to Carlos Sainz, who was six-tenths behind Norris.
However, George Russell was penalized with a 5-second penalty for overtaking Piastri off-track.
Fernando Alonso, on the other hand, was in 14th place after overtaking Hulkenberg. The Spaniard was 1.3 seconds behind his teammate, Lance Stroll.
The Austin Sprint: Checo Pérez Achieves a Meritorious Fifth Place
With 11 laps remaining, Checo Pérez overtook Sainz, pushing the latter down to sixth place. The battle for the eighth, seventh, and sixth positions remained intense.
Despite the battle between Sainz and Russell, Gasly couldn’t close the gap and remained two seconds behind.
Meanwhile, Logan Sargeant, who was in last place, entered the pits with his Williams and retired from the sprint race.
With 19 laps completed, Verstappen once again secured the victory, adding more points to his already impressive tally.
Lewis Hamilton finished in second place, followed by Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris, and Checo Pérez.
With the penalty, Russell drops to eighth place behind Gasly.
Albon, in ninth, was just three-tenths away from capitalizing on the Mercedes driver’s punishment.
