Given that Red Bull and Ferrari, and from time to time McLaren, have undoubtedly closed down the pace advantage enjoyed by Mercedes in the first half of the season, it was looking possible that Kimi Antonelli might win the World Championship perhaps not fully in the style he would have wanted. His Austin qualifying and race performances demolished that concern in the most comprehensive way. From seemingly nowhere, he produced a stormer of an initial time in the third and final top-10 shootout to secure pole position and deny Max Verstappen's Red Bull and the two Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, all of whom had seemed likely to beat him.
It was his seventh pole of the season but his first since Spa back in the summer eight races ago, and therefore very timely. Kimi produced a perfect start and opening lap to comfortably lead, while the slow-starting Verstappen had to fend off the Ferraris. His pace, consistency, and tyre management thereafter was simply outstanding.
Both Red Bull drivers, Verstappen and Isack Hadjar, had impressively made it through to Q3 having used only one set of soft tyres up to that point. This would give Max on the front row two brand new sets of soft tyres for the race, surely a significant advantage? As it turns out, not so, as they didn't last particularly well, forcing Max to pit first of everyone on Lap 13 of 56, and clearly now on a two-stop strategy.
Mercedes didn't panic or respond, they trusted their data and instincts, and their championship-leading driver, to babysit his tyres at sufficient pace to make only one pit stop on Lap 24. With fresh tyres Max was inevitably very fast, and it initially appeared that he would be able to make up the extra 20 seconds he must spend in the pitlane for his second stop on Lap 31. But he couldn't clear the traffic with much ease.
With his radio failing for the second time, but not before he would castigate his team for not moving his team-mate on a different run plan out of the way much sooner, he ended up a fairly disgruntled third. Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player I did the post-race interviews and Max did though beam a nice smile when I complimented him on his overtake of Lando Norris up into Turn 1. It was pure Verstappen, just as he looked highly likely to lose a position to Leclerc, he converted that into an overtake of the McLaren with a stunning and controlled slice while extremely late on the brakes.
It didn't do him much good in the end though because after Leclerc's own first stop on Lap 15, and having already been awesome on the opening lap of the race, he was mighty fast all the way to the chequered flag for a very well-earned second place. Ferrari had led all three practice sessions and so their qualifying had been a relative disappointment, but Hamilton too was rapid in the closing stages and would finish fourth just a second behind Verstappen. Another lap and he'd have joined his team-mate Leclerc on the podium.
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