Antonelli on the brink of first F1 title after crushing US GP win

Kimi Antonelli made a one-stop strategy work to win the United States Grand Prix as mid-race challenges from Mercedes' Formula 1 rivals Red Bull and Ferrari failed to materialise in the final stint.

A ninth victory of the season left Antonelli on the brink of becoming the youngest-ever F1 world champion, though the 20-year-old will be forced to wait at least one more weekend as Mercedes team-mate George Russell laboured to eighth while Lewis Hamilton finished fourth.

Antonelli ultimately won from the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc and Red Bull's Max Verstappen.

They ran in that order at the start, too, Antonelli holding the lead off the line on medium tyres and Leclerc squeezing past Verstappen into Turn 4 as the Red Bull appeared to struggle for traction and/or power on the run downhill out of the first corner.

Verstappen had made it back ahead of Leclerc before the end of the first lap, with a move through the first part of the multiple right-hand sequence in the final sector, but Antonelli had already built a buffer of two seconds by this point - an advantage he increased steadily in the first stint before Verstappen opened the pitstop window by stopping at the end of lap 13.

That put him on a two-stop strategy - Red Bull electing to put him onto another set of softs - and the offset in stint lengths meant he did end up in the lead once the frontrunners had stopped, albeit with Leclerc bearing down on him and Antonelli closing in quickly too.

Midway through the 56-lap race Verstappen complained that he "must have a problem with my car, it's undriveable" while 2.1s ahead of Leclerc, and though he managed to keep the Ferrari behind he subsequently pitted on lap 33/56 to move onto mediums for the final stint - Red Bull choosing to avoid the hard tyre that had worked well on its rivals' cars but not on Isack Hadjar's RB22.

Antonelli needed only half a lap more once the Red Bull was out of the way to reclaim the lead by overtaking Leclerc into the Turn 12 braking zone, though Mercedes - committed to a one-stop by at this point, having put Antonelli on hards - still felt the Ferrari, which stopped for a second time to also switch to hard tyres, carried the bigger threat.

That proved to be the case; Verstappen struggled to make progress as he caught the McLaren of Lando Norris, and though he did finally make his way through - with a well-judged lunge into Turn 1, when he had looked vulnerable to being passed by Leclerc exiting the final corner - Verstappen held second for only three laps more before Leclerc came through.

By this point, it was too late for Leclerc to mount a challenge - with Antonelli's only real headache in the closing laps caused by a virtual safety car called so the Cadillac of Valtteri Bottas could be recovered from the side of the track, though Mercedes ultimately opted to keep Antonelli out on track rather than pit him for fresh tyres.

In the end, his winning margin was 13.078 seconds over Leclerc.

The late VSC probably ensured Verstappen kept his podium, as a late charge from Hamilton (who matched Ferrari team-mate's Leclerc strategy) left him one second short of third place.

Norris stretched out the one-stop well enough to clinch fifth ahead of third-place starter Hadjar, with Oscar Piastri seventh in the second McLaren.

He spent the second half of the race holding off Russell's Mercedes, which had been hamstrung by a five-second penalty served at his pitstop for leaving the track and gaining an advantage while battling Piastri on the opening lap.

Russell had been sixth at the time.

The points scorers were completed by Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson and Alpine's Pierre Gasly.

Aside from Bottas, Franco Colapinto (Alpine) and Ollie Bearman (Haas) were the other drivers to retire.

Bearman's race was an eventful one, as he briefly climbed into the top 10 in the opening laps, albeit only after clattering into the side of Gasly through Turn 13.

Bearman tried to claim the door had been closed on him but the stewards instead found him guilty of causing a collision and handed him a penalty, which he served at one of three pitstops inside the first 24 laps - the last of which was ultimately to retire the car.