{"id":293934,"date":"2023-10-22T01:25:08","date_gmt":"2023-10-22T01:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/?p=293934"},"modified":"2023-10-22T01:25:08","modified_gmt":"2023-10-22T01:25:08","slug":"verstappen-finishes-eight-seconds-clear-of-hamilton-to-win-sprint-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/racing\/f1\/verstappen-finishes-eight-seconds-clear-of-hamilton-to-win-sprint-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Verstappen finishes eight seconds clear of Hamilton to win sprint race"},"content":{"rendered":"
Max Verstappen won perhaps the most pointless Formula One race ever staged in baking Austin last night, a 19-lap sprint that is the smallest footnote in his season par excellence.<\/p>\n
With the Red Bull star having wrapped up his third successive title in Qatar a fortnight ago, the remainder of the calendar is something of an anti-climax, but this format especially exacerbates the predicament.<\/p>\n
Saturday of sprint weekends are now devoted to the shortened arrangement \u2013 sprint qualifying followed by the sprint \u2018proper\u2019. It is a day without meaning, sandwiched indelicately between Friday\u2019s qualifying and today\u2019s US Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
Alas, the same \u2018bread and circuses\u2019 will be served up in one of the four remaining races, in Sao Paulo. It needs looking at by the powers that be.<\/p>\n
There was some early drama, not that the TV director realised it. All season we had waited to see Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton dueling it out at the front, and we briefly got it, but you wouldn\u2019t have known it as the cameras focused on everything else for the first three laps. I thought they would pan over to the nearby Interstate 35.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Max Verstappen, who needs no more points this season, got eight more in the sprint Saturday<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
After nearly running Charles Leclerc (16) off the road, Verstappen (1) scampered away from all<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He finished eight seconds ahead of Hamilton, but he faces a long climb from sixth on Sunday<\/p>\n
For a long while, so the timing screens informed us, Hamilton was only half a second back from Verstappen. Sometimes it went out to a full second, and back again. Hamilton was cleverly using his expertise on this fabulous track, where he has claimed five of his six US Grand Prix victories.<\/p>\n
But pole-sitter Verstappen, who strong-armed Ferrari\u2019s Charles Leclerc off the start, gradually moved away. Hamilton\u2019s complaints that his bitter rival was running off track went unheeded.<\/p>\n
Verstappen finished 9.4 seconds ahead of the Briton with Charles Leclerc third for Ferrari.<\/p>\n
Hamilton\u2019s Mercedes team-mate George Russell was handed a five-second penalty for passing McLaren\u2019s Oscar Piastri illegally, and finished eighth.<\/p>\n