Box-office? Definitely. This year’s edition of the F1 race at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas threw up a thrilling battle between the two title protagonists over third – one that predictably ended with a stewards’ call that split the audience. Ferrari’s commanding 1-2 was almost secondary to the battle between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris.
Charles Leclerc was brilliantly opportunistic at the start, waiting for the Verstappen-Norris fight at the front to boil over beyond the white lines for him to ghost into the lead and leave the two in his wake. But Ferrari had known after the sprint race that a win was on the cards, even from the second row of the grid.
