The key details that boosted Red Bull and held back Hamilton in Verstappen’s USA victory

Formula 1’s Netflix documentary series, Drive to Survive, loves to engineer drama through creative licence. That’s apparent from its name. But the bumper, sellout 2021 United States Grand Prix crowd – the Austin venue boosted by new fans that have watched the series to the point it had to build new grandstands and bridges to extra infield viewing areas for the returning event – was treated to a true spectacle. One packed with real, scintillating, sporting drama.

Once again it was all about Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, with the former winning out in a thriller fought out on different strategies – after they’d once again gone wheel-to-wheel.

There was to be no new chapter in the ugly list of clashes the pair have recorded so far in 2021 – although it was a close-run thing – as the start went wrong for Verstappen. But the polesitter appeared to react to the lights going out at the same time as his rival, alongside the Red Bull on a front row for the first time since Zandvoort.

“I had quite a decent start,” Verstappen said, “but I think Lewis just had a really good start.”

Hamilton was indeed pleased to “finally” make a good getaway again. The world champion accelerated better as the pair reached the foot of the hill climbing steeply to the left-hand Turn 1 hairpin, with Verstappen swinging across in a futile bid to defend his lead. Hamilton was too far alongside by the time they raced across the pit exit line and he held the inside when they hit the brakes, then ran his rival out of road.

Here Verstappen “just went around the outside to try and avoid any trouble from behind, because it’s quite a tight hairpin so I just decided to go the long way round”, but he didn’t seem unduly bothered by Hamilton’s move. Indeed, Red Bull made no complaint to race director Michael Masi, who was satisfied the incident wasn’t comparable to the later clashes at the same spot – chiefly involving veterans Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen.

Hamilton led Verstappen back down the hill, the Dutchman rejoining the track from far to the right. Had it been any driver other than Sergio Perez to Verstappen’s left he likely would have been third coming into Turn 3, but the Mexican driver dutifully let his team-mate sweep ahead.

Hamilton ran Verstappen out of road at the start to seize the lead

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

At the end of the first lap Hamilton’s lead was 1.2 seconds, but it wouldn’t grow beyond that for the rest of the opening stint. In fact, Verstappen was easily able to sit on his rival’s rear, never out of DRS range after the opening tour (when it was still a lap from being permitted). Verstappen regularly told Red Bull that he could have been going faster had Hamilton not been there, with the 24-year-old noting how much his rival was sliding around, even in the early laps.

Red Bull was simply faster on the medium tyres, with which Hamilton was “struggling” – per Mercedes’ director of trackside engineering, Andrew Shovlin. The difference in performance on this compound set the scene for the tension and action that would play out later.

Simply put, Mercedes was in such trouble on the yellow-walled compound that it didn’t dare bring Hamilton in early – because it feared he wouldn’t get to the finish fast enough from there, even with two sets of fresh hards available.

"It was just a surviving mode – trying to keep up. It was a time that if I had a bad moment I wouldn't be able to control the car. It was the longest race of my life" Sergio Perez

Whichever team made the call to stop first would gain a critical advantage, as Austin’s abrasive track surface and low pitlane time loss favours undercuts and boosts the chances of grabbing or maintaining track position. The call was still always going to be a brave one when it came – but Red Bull made it at the end of lap 10. Verstappen had just reported that sliding in Hamilton’s dirty air was finally costing him tyre life and time, and so he dived in to switch to the hards.

“[Red Bull] went for the undercut out of necessity, and [it was] a very courageous move because it was very early,” Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff later reflected.

“We were in danger of overheating our own tyres and were being a bit stuck, so we decided to take the gamble and find some free air,” Wolff’s Red Bull counterpart, Christian Horner, explained.

Red Bull knew it was setting up a reverse of Bahrain – where Verstappen was put on a late-race charge by Mercedes boxing him into the long-run corner by making an aggressive early stop in the season-opener. With things swapped around at the Circuit of the Americas, Mercedes left Hamilton out as Verstappen quickly got up to speed on the hards –immediately to catch and pass former team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, running fifth. By the end of his out-lap, Verstappen was within the pitlane loss window and in the net lead.

Red Bull played the undercut perfectly to get Verstappen out in the lead after the first stops

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

But, unlike in Bahrain, there was a second threat for the leader to contend with: Perez.

The second Red Bull was 4.8s off the lead by the time Verstappen pitted, but this was close enough to Hamilton that Mercedes couldn’t simply leave him out to build a massive tyre off-set advantage. This was because Red Bull called Perez in at the end of lap 12 – with enough clear space ahead of him to charge into and threaten Hamilton’s track position with his own potential undercut.

So, Hamilton was therefore stopped at the end of lap 13 and at the conclusion of the following tour he was 6.8s behind Verstappen – now back in the lead of a race for the first time since Monza.

Perez’s race from this point was quite an ordeal. He’d already been struggling with what Horner carefully called a “stomach bug”, but Perez did not have any water to drink in his cockpit by the end of the first lap. The two issues took their toll in the Texas sun and Perez wouldn’t be a factor in the lead fight again, although he persevered to take a fourth podium of the season, and second in succession, ahead of the brilliant, if isolated, Charles Leclerc at the finish.

“It was extremely tough,” Perez said afterwards. “Already from lap 20 I was completely gone. I had no strength, I was losing strength on my hands, on my feet, the vision as well. It was getting quite uncomfortable, and it was just a surviving mode – trying to keep up. It was a time that if I had a bad moment I wouldn't be able to control the car. It was the longest race of my life.”

Red Bull, no doubt also aware that it would have lost further ground to Mercedes in the constructors’ fight just to gain a point back from Hamilton’s total, decided it would be too “brutal” to stop Perez late on to chase the fastest lap, according to Horner. That would have handed Leclerc third – not that the Ferrari driver’s “completely clean” run through the race wouldn’t have merited some silverware.

With Perez rapidly and conclusively falling out of the victory picture in the second stint, the battle between Verstappen and Hamilton was hotting up considerably. For the leader, even though he was firmly ahead of his rival, things were not looking and feeling as smooth as they had in the opening phase on the mediums.

Verstappen felt his early pace on the mediums wasn't as strong on the hards

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

“As soon as we went to the hard tyre it seemed like maybe that pace wasn’t there as much, which was a bit surprising,” Verstappen explained.

Another consideration for Red Bull was how much Verstappen had pushed his first set of hards in the early laps of what would be his middle stint because “you pay for it at the end of the stint”, per Horner. He later revealed that Verstappen’s first set of hards were “pretty much down to the canvas” when they were removed.

Verstappen’s pace in the run up to the halfway point was edging back up the 1m40s bracket and eventually back to the 1m41s that only the leaders (and Perez) had been able to do in the initial laps on the mediums. This meant Hamilton – lapping comfortably in the low 1m40s – could close on the leader.

On laps 41 and 42 alone, Verstappen shipped 3.3s to Hamilton, whose 1m38.485s on lap 41 would be the race’s fastest lap

By exactly half-distance of the 56-lapper, he was in undercut range and so, rather than risk losing track position, Red Bull went aggressive again and called its charge in for his inevitable second stop. This occurred just after a brief virtual safety car period was activated so some debris could be removed from inside Turn 16 – the lap before which Verstappen had moved to increase his pace knowing another stop was coming soon.

“We had to respond,” Verstappen explained of his lap-29 stop. “We had to go early again.”

As the victory race was down to F1’s best two horses once again, Mercedes could this time leave Hamilton out for as long as it wanted. The team knew he would have to make an on-track pass to win, but was confident the extra eight laps would prove decisive.

When Hamilton rejoined on his second set of new hards, he faced an 8.8s gap to the lead that had once been his, with 19 tours remaining. He was on a charge with a tyre-life advantage – familiar ground indeed. Over the next nine laps, Hamilton homed in on Verstappen at a rate of 0.668s each time by.

With fresher tyres, Hamilton charged after Verstappen in the closing stages but couldn't get close enough to pass

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

The leader was struggling when it came to lapping backmarkers – particularly making his way by Raikkonen’s Alfa Romeo and Yuki Tsunoda’s AlphaTauri with just past two-thirds distance completed. On laps 41 and 42 alone, Verstappen shipped 3.3s to Hamilton, whose 1m38.485s on lap 41 would be the race’s fastest lap.

But despite the gap coming down, things were not as bad as they seemed for Verstappen. After his stint two struggles, he’d adapted his approach – bedding the second hard set in better and then adjusting his driving to keep as much life left in them so he’d have the chance to fend off a late Hamilton advance.

“You just have to be smooth on them,” Verstappen said of his tyre treatment deep into the contest. “You cannot slide around in high speed or low speed. So just clean driving – no lock-ups, no wheelspin.”

And these tactics paid off for Verstappen. When Hamilton got to 2.1s adrift at the end of lap 48, the gap between the pair stabilised as Verstappen lifted his pace to reach the low 1m39s.

“When you follow a car, you start to suffer a bit,” Wolff said of this gripping phase of the race, the endgame now playing out. And Verstappen was about to have this made very clear – just when it seemed he might get through to the end unscathed.

On the penultimate lap, Verstappen reached the dirty air piling off Mick Schumacher’s already lapped Haas. The rookie was running a solo race by this point but did not jump out of the leader’s way as “as I can’t disappear, especially in the last sector”.

“I thought that was going to cost us the victory because he held up Max through the whole last sector,” said Horner, as Verstappen angrily called for Masi’s attention to be brought to the matter. But, suddenly, Schumacher’s presence went from curse to blessing.

Getting stuck behind Schumacher gave Verstappen DRS onto the final lap which allowed him to stay ahead

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

The Red Bull passed by the DRS detection point ahead of the penultimate corner within the one-second range behind, while Hamilton was still just too far back. So, even though the Briton started the final lap within that crucial gap, he was never in a position to activate DRS and try a late lunge, as Verstappen used his open rear wing to set the race’s fastest first sector on the last lap and stay out of reach to the flag.

“The last lap was all about trying to have a good first sector and beginning of the second sector,” Verstappen reflected after coming home 1.3s to the good. “But it wasn’t easy because the tyres were really finished. It's incredible to win here.

“[But] this doesn’t really change a lot because it’s all about the details – I always say it – so a win doesn’t give me more confidence or whatever. We are all confident within the team that we can do a really good job – but we need to nail the details and we have to start over again in Mexico, to try to get the best out of our whole package.”

"In the heat, I think their real strength has shone through this weekend. A bit like it has in other places, like Bahrain, this year" Lewis Hamilton

There were three key details in what felt like a breakthrough victory for Verstappen and Red Bull. Not only did they win at a track where Hamilton’s excels, but it ends Mercedes’ strong run of form, which stretches back to its Zandvoort defeat.

Red Bull still has 2021’s best car overall, but it needs careful fettling and settling to produce its ultimate potential at each venue. The team got this wrong last time out in Turkey, but it made amends in America.

“The turnaround from Friday to Saturday with the car, I think we found a better set-up,” Verstappen replied when Autosport asked him exactly where Red Bull had found a minute edge at Austin.

Mercedes lost the set-up battle this time. Its searing FP1 pace left it flattering to deceive, running in a much higher power mode compared to Red Bull at that stage. But the changes it made to its car balance did not work out and it returned to where it had begun the weekend come qualifying.

Hot conditions caused more rear-end sliding for Mercedes, an inherent problem dating back to the start of 2021

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

Mercedes also had to raise its rideheight to “go a bit up”, per Wolff, in a reaction to its car “heavily bottoming out” on COTA’s famous, and famously tough, bumps. Pierre Gasly and the Alpines ended up out with damaged cars, which showed what Mercedes would have risked a “massacre”, again per Wolff, had it not made set-up alterations.

But the third decisive detail that hinged the 2021 US GP result in Red Bull’s favour concerned the conditions. The heat may have hurt Perez’s chances for very specific and unpleasant reasons, but Hamilton reckoned it gave Verstappen an advantage.

“They were quicker all weekend, on all tyres [in the race],” he explained. “Just in the heat, I think their real strength has shone through this weekend. A bit like it has in other places, like Bahrain, this year.”

And as well as boosting Red Bull, the hot conditions also held back Hamilton and Mercedes.

“It wasn’t that we were making bad decisions on set-up,” said Shovlin, “but as it got hotter and a bit windier we were struggling more.”

This meant Hamilton was sliding around more. Rear-end instability, although much better than it was way back at the start of 2021, is an inherent W12 problem. It was what cost Hamilton his pole shot on Saturday, as Verstappen could keep his tyres in better shape come the end of the final Q3 laps and steal a march when he’d been practically level-pegging when Hamilton beforehand.

“It’s five to go now, and we know that there are a couple of races where Mercedes will have the edge and a couple where we will be strong,” Horner concluded. “The rest of the season is going to be really tight.”

Indeed, the details and the angels or devils they contain for both Red Bull and Mercedes will continue to be pivotal in this knife-edge title fight.

With five races to go, Verstappen has extended his points lead to 12

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images