My opinion after Friday Quali was that Verstappen would be on Leclerc mirrors very quick and he did but at that point the Ferrari driver was not on front of the race, it really shows how Ferrari is still a one lap car when it comes to the combination of Leclerc and Ferrari, the last ten pole position that he made end up loosing the race and this weekend was even worst, not only he sixth, two positions behind Sainz; he also got disqualified.
The race ended with Hamilton taking second place and Norris third after Verstappen climb from sixth position to the top, Hamilton became a menace to Verstappen towards the end of the race, last ten laps; when the Red Bull started to have technical problems with their braking system, the Mercedes look very fast compare to the rest and on this race I would say was the best car over all during the race from the fact that they didn't suffer any mechanical problems like the Red Bull did but it was very unfortunate that Hamilton got disqualified after the race.
Texas track Circuit of The Americas is a very bumpy track and for this race a few sections were resurface too, depending on how low the car is running at times you will see sparks coming from the back when the car hits the bottom, this is because the suspension is too soft or the travel of the suspension is too short, this sparks are generated by titanium skit blocks at the bottom of the car that serves as an indicator that the car is bottoming out and also as show because fans love it.
On this race since Friday there were some cars generating a lot of sparks along the track meaning they were bottoming out for any reason, this could become a problem if the wooden plank at the bottom starts to wear out, as shown on the above picture this plank also serves as a measure for regulations to make sure all cars run at a certain height for security purpose, after the race random cars are chosen for different test including measure the wooden plan wear and tear, in this case Hamilton and Leclerc race car plank was below specs meaning the car was running too low, this test was done to four cars, two pass and two did not, some might say its too hard of a rule to strip out Hamilton from second place but everybody else on the grid is racing under the same rule book.
This was a very uneventful race in terms that there was no safety car, Alonso had to retire the car because the floor broke, Piastri and Occon had a small touch that end up both retiring the car but nothing mayor that would interrupt the race so we had a full race session until the end with some good fights for the top positions.
Lando was Driver of The Day after his great start against Leclerc taking the top on the first turn and battling out with Verstappen although the car was not there for him to keep up, I think they also had some more tire degradation than expected making them to slow down, at some point he was constantly falling behind this favor Hamilton who had better tire degradation but their original strategy didn't give him the best chances to win the race.
Hamilton kept a good race pace and in his favor both Lando and Verstappen start to slow down because of multiple reason, one been that Verstappen had brake problems so he was having troubles on slow corners when he had to hit the brakes harder so he was probably trying to decelerate the car way early before the turn to then hit the brakes without locking up, Hamilton was not actually catching up in terms that he was faster but it was Verstappen and Lando coming to him, it was so excited to watch the last ten laps and see if Verstappen will pull it off after starting sixth and climbing all the way to first but Hamilton kept getting closer, mathematically since on a good day Verstappen end up +9 second in front on the sprint I assume he could get to first before half of the race depending on traffic and once he got the top it was just a matter of time before he could start pulling away.
Its funny and at the same time disappointing, makes me mad, angry, how on quali you got eight cars close to each other but then come the Sunday Race and things end up so different with cars so far from each other and the teams performing so poor but at least this was way better than all those races when Verstappen end with a +20 second advantage.
