This Sunday can be a big day for F1. The leader of the World Cup and great aspirant, Max Verstappen, will start from pole right next to the current champion and defending champion, Lewis hamilton. The two greatest rivals will face each other again, and this can only be synonymous with action. LThe last time they met in the race was at Monza and it ended with the Dutchman’s car parked on top of the Englishman’s car. And the previous time the two got into a fight on the asphalt, at Silverstone, the Briton beat Max at more than 250 km / h..
After Italy, engine change penalties by Verstappen and Hamilton in subsequent races left fans wanting to see another match. But they all knew that the day would come when they would meet again. This Sunday is the day after this Saturday Max gave the first emotional blow to his opponent with a stratospheric pole on the horn, surpassing the 7 times king by two tenths. Hamilton had beaten him on his last attempt when it seemed unthinkable after Red Bull dominated the entire session. However, the Dutchman did not miss his last turn, achieving a champion pole, winning at the key moment.
The starting grid
United States GP
1. Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
2. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
3. Sergio Pérez (Red Bull)
4. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)
5. Carlos Sainz (Ferrari)
6. Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren)
7. Lando Norris (McLaren)
8. Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri)
9. Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) * 5 positions to change internal combustion engine.
10. Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri)
11. Esteban Ocon (Alpine)
12. Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo)
13. Lance Stroll (Aston Martin)
14. Nicholas Latifi (Williams)
15. Kimi Räikkönen (Alfa Romeo)
16. Mick Schumacher (Haas)
17. Nikita Mazepin Uralkali (Haas)
18. Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin) * Engine change
19. George Russell (Williams) * Engine change
20. Fernando Alonso (Alpine) * Change of the whole engine
This Sunday, the two will meet again in an outing in which all the ingredients come together for something important to happen. Verstappen He is only 6 points ahead of Hamilton, both of them come off each other on Friday in Free Practice 2, the end of the World Cup is near and the nerves are on the surface. No one can fail. And to top it all, the Austin circuit allows overtaking and the first corner seems the ideal one for sparks to jump at the start. It is normal that many fans think of train crashes as famous as those of Senna and Prost in Suzuka (1989 and 19990) and other hand-to-hand heart attacks in the middle of the fight for the World Cup. Neither of them is going to loosen or give in the first corner or in other melee. A collision can end up igniting your rivalry. And if there is not, the strategic fight can be epic due to the degradation of the tires on this track. Hamilton he will have to face them alone before the two Red bull, with Perez with nothing to lose by starting third with the sole objective of getting the car to Lewis, who will not have the help of a Bottas who penalized 5 places for changing the engine (he will start 9th). The battle can last a single corner or the planned 56 laps. It can be a key day. The first of the 6 remaining finals.
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Sainz, fifth
Carlos Sainz will start fifth, just behind Leclerc (4th). The Spaniard met the objective of beating the McLaren, who will start just behind (Ricciardo, 6th and Norris, 7th), but the Spaniard got into trouble by not going to Q3 with the medium tire, something that the rest did. of pilots around you. Ferrari put the soft start rubber on him in Q2 and his second attempt was with the middle, but he couldn’t improve his opening time with that yellow compound. This could make things very difficult for him this Sunday due to the huge degradation of the soft tires. He will have to suffer to fight against Mclaren.
Alonso comes out from the bottom
Fernando Alonso will start this Sunday from the bottom of the starting grid of the Formula 1 United States GP when serving a penalty for changing all the elements of the power unit of your Alpine.
The Spaniard already said in the last Turkish GP that he planned to make this change in Istanbul to face the last races with a fresh engine, but he did not do so due to the good performance of his car, with which he started fifth. What I couldn’t predict is that later Gasly it would deprive him of getting a great result for a touch in the first corner battling for fourth place. The Spaniard had to choose one of the six remaining tracks to mount a completely new unit and chose to do it in Austin, a circuit where it is possible to overtake. In ‘qualy’, with nothing at stake for him because whatever he did nothing would change his delayed starting position, he focused on helping at all times Or with with the slipstream in the second sector. This served the Frenchman only to be 11th, although he will be able to start with a free choice of tires. Fernando will look for a difficult comeback. He will try again starting with another great start, but the points are very difficult.