Dre’s Race Review: F1’s 2024 United States Grand Prix

Charles Leclerc dominates in America as Verstappen re-establishes the rules of engagement at Lando Norris’ expense. Dre Reviews a newsworthy GP in Austin.

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Read time: 11 mins

“Da Rules.”

It’s Part 2 of another F1/MotoGP double header weekend here on M101 and another DRR post about it. This time, it’s the F1 2024 United States Grand Prix and in this edition of the show, we had the quietest Ferrari 1-2 you could have imagined as Charles Leclerc won his third race of the season, with Carlos Sainz close behind in second. But it got completely overshadowed by another Championship flashpoint, and some questionable actions from the stewards room, again. 

Let’s get into it.

Before a wheel was turned in anger, we had a war of words amongst the teams, with someone in the paddock being accused of using a device in Parc Ferme to adjust the height of their Bib – a part of their floor. On Friday, Red Bull admitted it was them who were being accused of doing so, and were in dialogue with the FIA about how to resolve it. Amazingly, we even got footage during Friday’s running of them showing the FIA delegates how they adjusted their BiB in real-time. 

The BiB device in question was a tool that could only be used when the car wasn’t fully assembled at the front, so there was little to no chance that Red Bull could be using it in between Parc Ferme conditions. But that didn’t stop the usual rounds of social media dialogue accusing them of cheating. The devices were sealed this weekend as a safeguarding measure, but the FIA have now considered the matter closed with no accusations of official wrongdoing given out.

I’m holding nothing back here, this was a petty squabble that was completely unnecessary from all parties. BiB devices and the tools to adjust them have pre-dated the ground-effect regulation change from 2022. Every team has a similar device to access their BiB and it’s on the open-source list of components for the cars. The only way you could prove by a reasonable doubt that Red Bull was committing foul play would be to check the CCTV of every Parc Ferme garage going back at least three years, which is what McLaren was pushing for them to do because Zak Brown has never seen a fight he hasn’t tried to pick. 

And look, I shouldn’t rise to it because F1 Twitter is the definition of acting in bad faith when these news stories drop, but the dialogue on this one was completely ridiculous. I get it, because Red Bull broke the cost cap in 2021, they’re never going to get the benefit of the doubt on anything in the eyes of many, especially as the sport’s most recent dominant winners. But this was a complete nothing burger story with them being accused by at least one other team in bad faith, and that’s shitty. But this is like chum for people who truly believe Red Bull are chronic cheaters. 

I said it after this very race last season when Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were DQ’ed over their planks – You have to assume good faith when governing Motorsport. If we went into it thinking everybody was intentionally cheating, it’d take months to evaluate 20 cars a weekend for the entirety of the nearly 200-page technical regulation book. That’s not a realistic proposition for anyone involved. And most of the time the FIA have to intervene, it’s that exact good faith that leads to nuanced discussion, and settlement of issues. Most of the time, the accused team isn’t intentionally cheating, they’re referring to a rulebook that’s often open for interpretation. Teams push, governing bodies push back, close loopholes and we crack on. That’s how governance works. 

I had Ferrari’s 2019 power unit case mentioned over the weekend as the most recent conspiracy of an under-the-table deal. But a lot of people conveniently forgot that the reason that handshake agreement happened was that while the FIA had strong enough suspicions to take action against Ferrari, then FIA President Jean Todt would reveal that they couldn’t prove Ferrari had done anything wrong, and Maranello didn’t want to take the story public and potentially have to reveal their intellectual property. It’s not the gotcha some of you think it is.

F1 is now such a territorial sport on and off the track that it brings out the worst in a lot of its stakeholders. It’s genuinely exhausting having to wade through all the nastiness and political ignorance before getting to the crux of the issue and I can’t stand it. And to think, this was largely resolved by Friday night. Yay. Right, onto the racing.

The one thing I don’t like about Sprint weekends, something I’m normally rather indifferent about is the fact that they usually give so much of the game away early before sitting down for the GP on Sunday. Not here. All the big hitters bar Ferrari had upgrade packages for the weekend, and they all shined differently. Max was delighted with his Friday and Saturday, a new sidepod and floor edge allowing him to push a little bit harder with relative comfort compared to his recent RB20s. Mercedes were super fast over a lap, with George Russell just 12 thousandths behind Max in the Sprint Shootout, and Norris on Row 2 with Piastri eliminated in SQ1 for track limits.

Max pulled away and won with relative ease in the end, with Norris dropping to 3rd in the Sprint after a final lap lockup and his tyres going right at the end. But it was the un-upgraded Ferrari who looked incredibly fast and aggressive, and they’d have likely won the sprint if it wasn’t for their own fighting as teammates on track allowing Max Verstappen to pull away.

GP Qualifying was another little twist – Norris with the upper hand on their first runs in Q3, but then Russell spinning into the outside wall at Turn 19 ended the session early and got Norris his fourth pole position in the last five races, with Max sharing the front row.

Norris got a decent getaway but left the apex of the hairpin rip for the taking and Verstappen took full advantage, but in doing so left the door open for Charles Leclerc to take the lead and he didn’t look back. But that’s not why you’re here. Let’s do some fast-forwarding…

Lewis Hamilton’s retirement via early spin-out allowed the drivers to back off early and essentially turn the race into a one-stopper compared to Pirelli’s predictions of two. McLaren ran super long, going 31 laps on their initial medium tyre. It’s their classic strategy bread and butter, run long and use the offset to gain ground. It worked again here, with Norris coming out fourth but with a significant delta over Verstappen in third. Norris is in range with 15 to go. Max was able to dodge and weave Norris’ attacks for a good while, but with 5 laps left, Norris pounced on the DRS straight towards Turn 12. Max runs himself and Norris off the track, Norris comes out ahead and takes third… 

…and then gets hit with a five-second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage. The internet rages, and understandably so. Fans in general were not impressed with the stewarding call on this and many of the other Turn 12 incidents this weekend.

So, what do I think? Well… this might hurt some feelings, but I’ll say it here – Max Verstappen’s a genius. And that’s the problem.

Verstappen knew exactly what he was doing on this one. It’s in the sport’s passing guidelines, the regulations that were constructed with the driver’s input to give a clearer idea of what constitutes a legal pass, and Max knew that as long as he beat Norris to the apex, he had the right of way, even if he ran off the track afterwards. I’ve got it on good authority from my colleagues at the day job that the GPS data showed that Max broke way later than he usually did. Norris was forced off given where Max had placed his car and he was ultimately deemed accountable for his pass. He likely did himself no favours by goosing the throttle when he knew he wasn’t making the corner, but by the letter of the law – He left the track and gained an advantage. It was only 5 seconds instead of the new recommendation of 10 because of the mitigation of Max forcing Lando off. 

Russell did the same thing – he passed Valtteri Bottas and ran him four wheels off-track to make sure he made the pass, he got to the apex first too. And he got a 5-second time penalty. But Norris was deemed at fault for this one and Max was a “victim” despite being the instigator? Oooft. 

And part of the problem is despite the guidelines, the stewards can activate the grey area of mitigation by calling the whole process “dynamic” which allows them wiggle room against their own guidelines, and that’s another part of the problem, you can’t have a uniform rule regarding block passes in F1. There are so many different potential factors at play, steering, speed, braking, angle of corner, or corner sequences… I could go on for another 1,000 words about it. That’s not something you can manage via a uniform policy. 

Norris wasn’t given a “strike” against his track limits count for that pass because the stewards said he was forced off but was still guilty of gaining an advantage. All you’re going to end up doing here is pissing off fans and uneducated viewers because, at face value, it doesn’t make sense.

Let me be crystal clear. It’s clear gamesmanship from Max and I don’t like it. Max has always been this way, and I think for the greater good, it should be nipped in the bud by the powers that be. But I’ve been saying this for three years plus now and nothing has changed. Max is one of the few drivers in modern history who’s prepared to step over that line into questionable racecraft and roll the dice on letting the stewards make the call. And more often than not, he’s gotten it right. If last night unlocked some core memories for you, I can relate – It reminded me of another Max move that he got away with.

Brazil 2021 was where Max opened up his steering, ran Lewis Hamilton off the road to stay in front, and the stewards did nothing about it. In a twisted way, it’s brilliant – Defence via Offence is exploiting the rulebook in the process. It’s Mike Tyson but in a race car.

The overtaking section of the guidelines only covers rules of engagement on the inside and outside of a passing move, and not that middle ground that Max is taking advantage of, what happens after he’s taken the apex, which right now, is fair game. There have been other marginal calls that have gone one way or the other, like Las Vegas last year where Max DID take a time penalty because he didn’t want to give up track position and the lead. 

As I said, in a way, I respect it. Max knows the rule book and knows how to exploit it to his advantage. It’s part of what makes him so good as a driver, as nasty as it can be as a neutral bystander. The book he’s driving to is inherently flawed and needs to be amended to cut it out of the sport because, in my eyes, it does more harm than good on the whole.

And I’m not giving McLaren a pass for it either – This team still reeks of naivety to me. Lando Norris has to race Max smarter than this or else he’s not going to win the key matchups that could win him a World Championship if that’s the level we want to evaluate him at as a driver. He left the hairpin open on the opening lap and was beaten by Max yet again, making him 1-9 for pole starts in his career when it comes to leading Lap 2. 

Gunning the throttle only made him look more guilty by the book when dealing with Max, and even after all of that, he doesn’t get the penalty if he gives the position back. Norris knew it was sus and McLaren didn’t tell him to give it back. Like it or not, there was always a risk the stewards could hit him with a penalty with the way the race was being officiated, and if you had faith Lando had a way quicker car and could get him again, back your man to do it. Always better to leave it in the hands of your driver than in the stewards’ room.

As a result, combined with the two-point gain from the Sprint, Max gained five points in his Championship lead over Norris, stretching it out to 57 points. I’ve nicknamed Norris’ chase as “Required Run Rate”, ala T20 Cricket. Going into COTA, Norris needed 8.67 points per weekend gained. Now it’s 11.4. It’s like bowling a wicket maiden at the death. Norris has the two extra Sprints still to come at Qatar and Brazil, but we’re getting close to the “he needs shenanigans” level of deficit. And if Ferrari gets in the way again between now and the end of the year, the mission gets that much harder. It could be a championship-sealing kill shot, especially with Mexico just six days away, another Verstappen hunting ground. 

Wish I felt better about all this, but that’s a problem the sport doesn’t seem to want to address. And I wish we had stewards didn’t feel like they hand out penalties in the style of Balatro’s Wheel of Fortune card, but what do I know?

And that’s why I intentionally left talking about Ferrari until the lightning round. They just pulled off a brilliant, dominant 1-2 finish with no new upgrades on their car against the field, and it feels like when Dani Pedrosa won the 2015 Malaysian GP – No one cared. I feel bad for them they were no longer the main story when Verstappen and Norris threw those haymakers, but here we are. Leclerc was exceptional and so good at managing his tyres in race scenarios, and I loved Sainz’s aggression, never quite stepping over that line but looking racy and doing what he needed to do to finish second. And with them just 48 points behind McLaren in the Constructors, a late title push isn’t completely out of the question…

Another really strong showing from the rookies. Liam Lawson showed exceptional pace and confidence in his car to go from 19th to 9th on his RB debut, and Franco Colapinto was in the wars and the points again in 10th for Williams. Really impressive from the pair of them, showing that the rookies can make statements immediately and you can afford to gamble for the right person. Colapinto needs a 2025 seat. The problem is that there seems to be only one left.

Even with Lawson’s points, Haas took 7 on the weekend with another really good weekend to go in front of them and take sixth in the Constructors. Said it in Ask Dre, and will do it again – Ayao Komatsu is doing a sensational job over there in Banbury1

I know people have mentioned the idea of adding more temporary gravel strips to run-off areas to avoid incidents like Verstappen’s – But it’s tricky. COTA also races bikes, and ideally, you don’t want to add gravel there because it tends to flip bikes and people over more and increase the risk of injury. I want to see more experiments on these temporary strips because I still don’t think it’s ideal for a MotoGP rider to suddenly deal with a strip of gravel if they go offroad, especially somewhere like Turn 12 at COTA, bit I hope a compromise is found – We’re the pinnacles of Motorsport, surely we can find a way?

And to think, because of Marco Bezzecchi, this wasn’t even the biggest Motorsport penalty howler controversy of the weekend. 

So… safe to say Lewis Hamilton didn’t like that new upgrade package huh? Was that his worst-ever weekend in F1 from a performance standpoint? 

And finally… back to calling Sergio Perez cheeks again.

  1. Cheers, Mike for correcting me here when I originally said Bromley. Can you tell I dropped Geography at Age 14? ↩︎

About the Author:

Dre Harrison

Somehow can now call himself a Production Coordinator at the Motorsport Network, coming off the back of being part of the awkward Johto Era at WTF1. All off a University Project that went massively out of hand. Weird huh?

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