Luke’s Weekend Take – USA GP 2024

Leave a Comment / News / By

USA GP 2024: Norris Grabs Pole, Verstappen in Pursuit as Championship Heats Up

USA 1

After a 3 week absence of racing we are back for some action and entering the last triple header of the season as we are back in Austin Texas for the USA GP and Round 19 of the 2024 season.

One of the big news in the paddock is obviously the departure of Daniel Ricciardo from VCARB as Liam Lawson is set to race instead of him for the remainder of the season. This is very sad news to see the Honey Badger depart the paddock for possibly the final time as an F1 driver, he has given us great entertainment in his time in F1 and he will surely be missed if he doesn’t get a seat next year. The other news was that of Haas partnering up with Toyota who is set to be the main technical sponsor for Haas and will help with production of parts. Interestingly enough, Haas will still remain Ferrari customers and will not be using Toyota engines for now.

For the USA GP we see multiple teams come with some special liveries as we see McLaren come back with the famous Chrome livery they rocked in the past, Haas this being their home race added some stars and stripes to their livery while Alpine went with an interesting livery changing the blue to orange and making it difficult for the fans to distinguish the cars of McLaren and Alpine as we seen a lot throughout the buildup so far by the commentators too. We also see some of the track has been resurfaced making it smoother and less bumpy although there are still some bumps around the track.

Heading now into the only Free Practice this weekend given it is a Sprint weekend so we will get to witness 2 races. In FP1 very early on we see Franco Colapinto have a moment in Sector 1 as he gets on the power too early coming out of a corner and loses the rear a bit but manages to hold the car and keep going. Oscar Piastri a bit later on had a moment himself as he locks up under braking into Turn 12 and goes a bit wide but no real damage other than some flat spotted tyres. We also see Pierre Gasly spin a bit into Turn 1 as we see some Yellow Flags and we also see Lewis Hamilton do something very similar as all teams seem to have been struggling a bit trying to perfect the setup for the track.

Big spin for Hamilton came 12 minutes in as he goes over the bump of Turn 4 and loses the rear and spins a few times across the track and off the track, luckily, he was able to keep it out of any barriers as that part of the track is quite wide. George Russell was heard on the radio asking if it was in Turn 4 where Lewis lost the car and said he also had a moment over there so could have been a setup issue with the Mercedes car. We see Zhou Guanyu limping back into the pits as he comes on the radio saying he has no power, and the team asked him to stay in gear as he got back to the pits.

In the last 10 minutes of Free Practice we see all teams starting their qualifying sims and shortly after we see the VSC come out as we see Oscar Piastri have a near miss with the pit entry wall as he was coming in too fast and had to pull out last minute and crosses the white line back onto the track, Piastri gets a Black and White flag for this manoeuvre even though he would have crashed if he didn’t do this. At the end we see Carlos Sainz topping the leaderboard followed by Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen.

For Sprint qualifying we will see the Medium mandatory tyres for SQ1 and SQ2 while the mandatory soft for SQ3 so all drivers had to abide by these rules. In SQ1 we see Alex Albon spin on his last flying lap in the last sector and managed to do a full 360 before getting back on the track but this ruined his lap and gets knocked out in SQ1 as we lose Oscar Piastri, Esteban Ocon, Alex Albon, Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu, Piastri had his last lap time deleted which is why he was only 16th fastest as for the first time this season, Piastri doesn’t get out of SQ1.

In SQ2 it was very straightforward in terms of incidents but in the end, we end up losing Sergio Perez, Pierre Gasly, Lance Stroll, Fernando Alonso and Liam Lawson, worth noting that both Alonso and Lawson had their time deleted as well for exceeding track limits. In SQ3 we see Franco Colapinto lose the car at Turn 12 and spin a bit which lost him some time who might be in a bit of trouble now as his tyres wouldn’t be optimal for another run. In the end we see Max Verstappen take pole for the sprint race followed by George Russell, Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris, Carlos Sainz, Nico Hulkenberg, Lewis Hamilton, Kevin Magnussen, Yuki Tsunoda and Franco Colapinto will form the Top 10 in the Sprint Race.

Round 19 USA GP: Norris Leads the Charge, Ricciardo Bids Farewell, and Haas Partners with Toyota

Ahead of the Sprint Race we get news that Alex Albon will be starting in the pitlane as Williams did some setup changes to his suspension breaking Parc Ferme. All drivers opted for the medium tyres with only Tsunoda with a brand new set who will start in P9. At lights out we see both Verstappen and Russell get a good start and Verstappen immediately covers off Russell however Russell was in trouble as he had both Leclerc and Norris on either side of him, Russell defends and seems to slow down the Ferraris while Norris stuck to the inside line and by Turn 2 he was able to get past Russell making up 2 spots straight away. Leclerc stayed on the back of Russell and between Turns 12-15 the pair were swapping places but, in the end, Russell was able to stay ahead in 3rd.

On Lap 2 we see Perez have a massive lockup and nearly went in the back of Tsunoda into Turn 12 but luckily Perez was able to take evasive action and went a bit wide in the end. On the same lap we also see Sainz put an attack on Leclerc as the pair kept swapping places as well in the same section, we saw Leclerc and Russell battle and on Lap 3 we see Sainz get past Leclerc into Turn 1, but Leclerc played this to his advantage and did the switcharoo. This battle kept going on despite Leclerc going on the radio saying that they need to focus on getting closer to the guys in front and on Lap 5, Sainz was able to force his way through at Turn 12. All this was happening as Russell was also putting a charge on Norris but was not able to get past and also lost some time as the Ferraris was on the back of Russell by Lap 7.

On Lap 8 we see Alonso go for a move on Lawson but Lawson defended aggressively and their wheels touch slightly, Alonso didn’t like this as he came on the radio saying that Lawson was an idiot and while this battle was happening, Ocon saw the opportunity and managed to get past the both of them in the space of 2 corners. On Lap 9 we see Sainz was able to get past Russell into Turn 12 as well who gets into the podium positions now and a lap later, his teammate Leclerc was able to pull the same move on Russell in the same corner as Russell seems to be struggling for pace now.

On Lap 11, Piastri gets a 5 second penalty for forcing Gasly off the track earlier in the race. Another great battle was forming on Lap 13 as we see Perez overtake Tsunoda, but Tsunoda was not letting this one go as he was fighting Perez for a good few corners trying to show Red Bull that he deserves Perez’s seat, in the end, Perez was able to make the move stick. Tsunoda had another battle, this time with Piastri on Lap 14 as Piastri went for a move and overtook Tsunoda but Tsunoda was able to get past again while he was off track, his team asked him to give this position back but Tsunoda refused saying that they would have had contact if he didn’t go off track. This was noted to the stewards but there was no further investigation as on Lap 16 we see Piastri overtake Tsunoda into Turn 1.

At the front the Ferraris managed to get right on the back of Norris by the last lap and it wasn’t looking very good for Norris and coming into Turn 1 on the final lap, Norris locks up which allowed Sainz to get through into 2nd but Norris managed to hold Leclerc off at that moment, later that lap though we see Leclerc taking evasive actions as he was caught by surprise seeing Norris braking a bit earlier as he was taking a non-conventional line to make sure there is not a gap for Leclerc to lunge him. At the end we see Max Verstappen taking a comfortable win as he was never really under pressure, followed by Carlos Sainz, Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Lewis Hamilton, Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg formed the Top 8 for the Sprint Race.

Onto qualifying now for the race on Sunday and we start off by getting news that Laim Lawson will be starting from the back as he nearly took every new engine component for his car. In Q1 we see some lap times deleted straight away as Leclerc and Tsunoda had their laps deleted putting them on the back foot for Q1. And in Q1 we end up losing Alex Albon, Franco Colapinto, Valtteri Bottas, Lewis Hamilton and Zhou Guanyu. Hamilton made a mistake on his last flying lap which is why he was out in Q1, but he had always qualified 5th or better in the past here. Worth noting that Lawson was in P3 for Q1.

For Q2 Lawson came back out but only to give a tow to Tsunoda with the aim to get him into Q3 but Tsunoda comes on the radio saying that he was getting a lot of dust and asked the team to tell Lawson what to do going into Turn 12. This though was all in vain as we lose Yuki Tsunoda, Nico Hulkenberg, Esteban Ocon, Lance Stroll and Liam Lawson in Q2. For Q3 on the first runs we see Perez losing the lap time as he exceeded track limits, and we see Norris taking provisional pole followed very closely by Verstappen and we see Carlos Sainz in 3rd for the first runs. For the 2nd runs we see that Verstappen was on a flyer and Norris was not improving so it was looking good once again for Verstappen but we cut into a shot of Russell in the barriers at Turn 19 and after a replay we see him losing the rear and spinning into the barriers, luckily Russell was ok and was able to get out of the car. This meant however that no one could improve their times, and we have Norris on pole for the race tomorrow followed by Verstappen, Sainz, Leclerc, Piastri, Russell, Gasly, Alonso, Magnussen and Perez forming the Top 10 for tomorrow.

Who do you think will come out on top tomorrow? Will Norris be able to hold Verstappen off and take the win to continue eating into Verstappen’s lead for the Championship battle? Tune in tomorrow to find out.  

 

Share this article with your friends

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *