At the start in Austin, Verstappen and Leclerc moved away seemingly in unison, but the Ferrari gained in the start’s second phase.
As he came slightly alongside the Red Bull, Verstappen edged his rival right across the track and close to the grass by the pitlane exit.
That left Leclerc pinched very tight on the inside of the uphill left-hand hairpin and with Hamilton swinging around on the outside line he was able to get a run on the Ferrari – coming by on the exit off the track in a move that was not assessed by race control.
By the end of the first lap of 19, Verstappen and Hamilton were well clear of Leclerc, and they continued to pull away across the race’s opening half as they were able to lap in the mid 1m39s with the Ferrari back in the 1m40s.
Hamilton made inroads into Verstappen’s lead early and had DRS for a few laps, but by the sixth tour he was back over a second ahead – the Dutchman’s fear of a drivability issue that impacted his sprint qualifying performance put down to sliding in the wind by Red Bull.
From there, Verstappen remained the only one of the leaders able to regularly stay in the 1m39s, which meant his lead quickly rose over Hamilton and was 3.3s by the end of lap 10.
There was little action in the second half of the race, with Verstappen continuing to pull away from Hamilton to an eventual winning margin of 9.4s, with Leclerc a further 8.5s back in third.
Source: Autosport