Red Bull’s Max Verstappen reacts to Austin Sprint win: “Like the old days!”. Austin Sprint: Great performance by Max Verstappen, who finished ahead of a fantastic Carlos Sainz.

The story of the Austin Sprint
Short, intense, and rather spectacular. That was the Austin Sprint, which saw Max Verstappen return to victory. The Dutchman, starting from pole position, had a perfect start and managed to keep the lead without much trouble. Behind him, however, the fireworks started: Carlos Sainz came in second, the real star of the Texan afternoon, delivering an objectively flawless race.

The Spaniard from Ferrari initially won a spectacular duel with his teammate Charles Leclerc, lasting several laps and featuring a series of amazing overtakes and re-overtakes, especially between turns 15 and 16. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, he outsmarted Norris at turn 1 on the final lap with a fake move that confused the English McLaren driver, who had to settle for third place, barely defending it from a battered Charles Leclerc after the duel with his teammate.

Norris, on this occasion, had also been brilliant at the start, outwitting both Russell and Leclerc and gaining two positions within the space of three corners. The two Mercedes drivers, however, were disappointing, with George Russell finishing fifth and Lewis Hamilton sixth, never featuring as main contenders. On the other hand, the Haas cars of Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg performed excellently, shining for their home weekend and completing the points positions in seventh and eighth.

The top-3
Max Verstappen (1st, Red Bull): “Today wasn’t bad, it was a bit like the old days. If you look at the whole race, the Ferraris are also very fast. But we can finally race again because lately, we always had to look behind us. Now we can run our race, and we had a good pace. 11 Sprint wins out of 16? I win them because I don’t like them. Jokes aside, these weekends are always hectic, but here the car has always been in a good window. There’s more pressure, but luckily for us, it works.” – the Dutchman pointed out.

Carlos Sainz (2nd, Ferrari): “It’s always fun here, and we managed to put on a good bit of action. We had great battles in the first few laps, then towards the end, I was struggling with the tires, but I saw that Lando was suffering too. I knew that if I got into the DRS zone, I could get second. I made the pass in turn 1, it was fun. The reality is that we didn’t manage the tires that much. We found ourselves in so many battles that we couldn’t focus on that. But despite that, the pace was good. That’s encouraging for tomorrow. In qualifying, our car wasn’t in the best condition, but we’ll try to do our best today.”

Lando Norris (3rd, McLaren): “Honestly, I’m quite happy with the result today. I was hoping to get second, but Carlos did a good job, and my front tires were totally gone. There wasn’t much I could do. I would have lost the position anyway, even if I defended more. Overall, I’m happy with third place. Start? Lately, I’ve been having good starts, and today I managed to get off the line well. I couldn’t do more, I didn’t have the pace to stay with Max or beat the Ferraris.”