Lewis finished the race in P2 after starting from P5 on the grid, securing his sixth World Championship title and the team's ninth 1-2 of the 2019 season. Valtteri raced to his seventh victory in Formula One, his fourth of the 2019 season and first at the Circuit of the Americas.
Today's result marks the eighth podium for Lewis at the United States Grand Prix, breaking Michael Schumacher's record for most podiums at the race. Today's result also marks the 25th race led for Valtteri.
Lewis (381 points) leads the Drivers' Championship by 67 points from Valtteri (314 points) in P2 - an unassailable lead in the Drivers' Championship. Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport (695 points) leads Ferrari (479 points) by 216 points in the Constructors' Championship.
James Allison, Technical Director, accepted the Constructors' trophy on behalf of the team.
Toto Wolff: I'm so proud of everyone - what an incredible achievement! There's a massive amount of work behind the scenes to secure a result like this, where one driver claims the Championship and the other one wins the race. A massive thank you to everyone who contributed to this - here at the track, back at home in Brackley and Brixworth, at Daimler in Stuttgart and at Petronas in Kuala Lumpur. Taking his sixth drivers' title is a truly remarkable and special achievement. You can see how motivated Lewis still is, he wants to win every race and get the best result possible. It's not been an easy year, with tough competition and the loss of Niki. I'd like to think Niki's looking down on us, tipping his cap after today's result. Valtteri drove an absolutely faultless race today, he has been on incredible form all weekend and he thoroughly deserved the victory. Lewis fought back in style and put in a great drive to go from P5 to P2.
James Allison: The amount of effort it takes to win a championship is huge, so when it all comes to the final fruition, you just swell up with great, great pleasure - and to have the cherry on the cake of standing on that podium looking out on our team and everybody in the crowd was fantastic. It's brilliant to be part of this team - it makes you really keen to work, it takes you way above and beyond what you would normally give because you're surrounded by all these people that you don't want to let down and you enjoy being in an environment that is supporting you, letting you take risks, letting you screw up, but not slapping you in the face for it, just urging you on collectively as you go. It's an exciting place to be and it tends to make people want to be in it. Today, we all think of Niki who was such an important part of our team. Losing him was quite a massive blow, particularly to Toto who spent so much of his working life with him, but for all of us as well, because Niki was someone with such a big personality, such a huge figure in our sport and such a friend to the team. I think he would have appreciated this - doing it in such fine style this year, he would have seen this as a team at the top of its game. He'd probably be telling us to work on next years car now, but I think we've done him proud this season.
There was disappointment for Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow as it leaves Austin with just a fourth place finish courtesy of Charles Leclerc. In fact, the Monegasque driver had a tough time from Saturday onwards, when he had a power unit problem in free practice and he had to fall back on using a previous engine from then on. Sebastian had an even worse time of it, having to retire on lap 8 when a suspension component failed on his SF90.
Neither Sebastian nor Charles got the best of starts off second and fourth places on the grid, both men losing one place each to Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton respectively. Seb struggled for grip on the opening lap with massive understeer and was passed by Hamilton and Charles and a bit later by Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo. His race settled down from then on, but on lap 8 the right rear suspension broke and Sebastian had to retire.
Leclerc struggled a lot in the first stint on the Medium tyres and was never able to run at a competitive pace. He made his first stop on lap 20, taking on Hard tyres and his pace picked up considerably, matching that of the three leaders. However, the gap that had built up in the first stint meant Charles ran a rather lonely race. He made a further stop on lap 42 taking on Softs with which he picked up the point for setting the fastest lap of the race in 1:36.169. Charles is still third in the Drivers' championship, 14 points ahead of Verstappen and 19 in front of Sebastian. In the Constructors' classification, Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow is second, with over a hundred points in hand over Red Bull. The next round, the penultimate race of the season, takes place on 17 November in Brazil.
Mattia Binotto Team Principal: First of all I'd like to congratulate Lewis for clinching yet another World Championship title. It is well deserved and was achieved in style.
"As for our race, we were expecting much more from today. Seb had a problem with the right rear suspension, when the upper arm broke at a very early stage of the race. We think this issue was probably there from the first lap, but we need to look into it to understand exactly what happened.
"Charles' race was compromised by his first set of tyres, on which he had no grip at all. We could not understand why he was so slow and off the pace. In the second and third stint he had good pace, but it's difficult to compare it to that of the others, as everyone was in a different tyre situation at that point. In the final stint, he then found the car much more to his liking on soft tyres and set the fastest lap.
"We now have a lot to analyse and to understand. We are deeply disappointed as we don't believe this result mirrors our current performance level. There's something to learn from any bad result and this is what we plan to do now."
Christian Horner: "It was a really strong drive by Max today. He got a good start and then he picked up some front wing damage on the first lap so we elected to go for a two stop strategy versus Lewis' one stop. Max was able to keep Bottas in sight throughout the three stints and closed to within a second of Hamilton towards the end of the race. An unlucky yellow flag over the last couple of laps prevented the chance of a Max overtake but nonetheless P3 here in Austin has been the end to a very strong weekend. For Alex, he was unlucky at the start when he got involved in a pincer type movement up at Turn 1. This meant his front wing needed changing on the first lap and thereafter his recovery was fantastic. He did some great overtaking and showed strong pace to get back into P5 which makes him Driver of the Day and moves him up to P6 in the championship. He is showing solid progress and congratulations also go to Lewis Hamilton on his historic sixth World Championship which is truly quite a feat and well deserved."
Renault F1 Team picked up ten points from the United States Grand Prix with Daniel Ricciardo sixth and Nico Hulkenberg ninth in a thrilling race at the Circuit of the Americas, Austin.
Daniel made a quick start and progressed from ninth to sixth by the end of lap two, passing both McLarens and Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel. After jostling with Lando Norris, Daniel overtook the Briton for fifth on lap eight.
He pitted on lap 21 for Hards, meaning he would go to the end on those tyres on a planned one-stop strategy. Daniel was maintaining fifth before Alexander Albon came through eight laps from the end, but the Australian did enough to hold off a charging Norris at the flag.
Nico's race was a tale of two halves. He lost places at the start, falling from eleventh to thirteenth, and endured a tricky first stint on the Hard tyre. Converting to a two-stop, the German pitted for Mediums on lap 27 and then Softs on lap 39, which meant his 14-lap third stint would put pressure on those ahead. It paid off as he passed Pierre Gasly on lap 53 and then Sergio Perez a lap later for ninth place.
Cyril Abiteboul, Team Principal: "We have to first acknowledge it was once again a great race in our pack with very open and exciting strategic options for all. I think our drivers, and the team, enjoyed the race. Daniel made an excellent start and was one of the few drivers who managed to make a one-stop strategy work. When Norris stopped, we decided to be aggressive and not stop to try to beat both McLarens, which worked. On Nico's side, the strategy set before the race was also a one-stop, but we managed to switch it on time and Nico kept his head down when he slipped in the leaderboard. He was then able to regain positions on Soft tyres at the end thanks to clever fuel management at the beginning of the race.
"Today we witnessed a great show, the Formula 1 we like to see, with on-track action. We are satisfied with our American campaign and a nice harvest of points over the last two races. I would also like to congratulate Lewis Hamilton for his sixth title. It is particularly inspiring to see how he and his team are able to make things look easy when this sport is so demanding for everyone involved."
Haas F1 Team driver Romain Grosjean finished 15th while his teammate Kevin Magnussen retired as the result of a brake issue two laps from the end of Sunday's United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas, the 19th round of 2019 FIA Formula One World Championship.
Both Haas F1 drivers started on fresh sets of Pirelli P Zero Yellow medium tires and both made forward progress on the opening of 56 laps around the 5.513-kilometer (3.426-mile), 20-turn circuit. Magnussen jumped to 10th from his 12th-place grid position when he passed Renault driver Nico Hulkenberg and then Red Bull driver Alex Albon, who had to pit after first-lap contact. Grosjean moved from 15th to 14th as a result of Albon's mishap.
The first to pit among the Haas F1 duo was Magnussen, who came in on lap 19 from the 14th position for a set of new White hard tires and resumed in 17th. Grosjean, meanwhile, was as high as 13th while stretching his initial tire stint and finally pitted from 16th on lap 25 for his set of hard rubber. He resumed in 17th, two positions behind teammate Magnussen.
The two maintained those relative positions before Magnussen made his second stop of the day on lap 42, pitting from 15th for a set of Red soft tires intended to take him the rest of the way. He resumed in 17th, then took advantage of the fresh rubber to pass Grosjean for 16th. Again, the Haas F1 drivers held position until the closing laps, when Magnussen slid deep into the turn-12 gravel trap at the end of the long backstretch as the result of a brake issue. That, and a last-lap incident involving Toro Rosso driver Pierre Gasly, enabled Grosjean to move up to his finishing position of 15th.
With today's results, Haas F1 Team remained ninth in the constructors' championship with 28 points, seven behind eighth-place Alfa Romeo and 27 ahead of 10th-place Williams.
Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas won today's United States Grand Prix by 4.148 seconds over his teammate Lewis Hamilton, whose runner-up finish clinched his sixth career world championship and third in a row. The victory was the seventh of Bottas' career, his fourth of the season and first at Austin. Red Bull driver Max Verstappen finished third.
Guenther Steiner: "Obviously, it's a disappointing result, but it didn't come unexpected. We know where we are at the moment, and it's not where we want to be. We start the race then we just begin to go backwards, we just haven't got enough performance in the car. Kevin (Magnussen) retired with two laps to go, we think it was something with the brake system. We need to investigate but we haven't had the car back yet. There are two more races to go and we just need to keep our heads up. We'll hopefully try and get a little bit out of it."
Andreas Seidl, Team Principal: "Having underperformed last Sunday in Mexico we needed to bounce back here, so it was good to secure another 10 vital points in our fight for P4 in the Constructors' Championship. Our teamwork today was key to our overall performance: from the mechanics, the engineering team here and back at our home base, and from the drivers, who've both put in very strong performances all weekend.
"After two weeks on the road it's good to be going home. We'll recharge and get ourselves ready to end the season strongly in Brazil and Abu Dhabi. Finally, congratulations to Lewis Hamilton. Six Drivers' World Championships is an incredible achievement."
Otmar Szafnauer: "Seeing Sergio race from the pit lane to a points finish is a satisfying end to a challenging afternoon. It wasn't easy to make the one-stop race work, but Sergio did a fantastic job to look after the Hard tyres and maintain good pace for 31 laps. Things got a bit messy on the final lap when Kvyat made contact, but justice prevailed as the stewards reinstated Sergio into a well-deserved tenth place. Lance's race was compromised from the start when his front wing was damaged and he dropped almost to the back of the field. Due to the damage, which affected the car's balance, we converted to a two-stop race but ultimately missed out on points."
Rodeos are rough affairs. The riders cling on for dear life, thrown about by a reluctant beast that wasn't once asked what it thought of the game plan. It kicks, it bucks, it jumps - and there is only one conclusion. The ride wins.
It felt a little bit like that, on track, today. We put in a big fight: we held on to a points-paying position for as long as we could, giving everything we had. Ultimately, though, that was not enough. Just as we felt we could grasp the objective, one final thrust was what made us fall just short. P11 and P14 is not what we wanted.
Yet, rodeos are not just about the end result. It's about how one fights, it's about the performance. And on that front, we cannot beat ourselves up too much: what we saw here in Texas was a step forward, something to build on, a good indication ahead of the final races of the season.
We may have ended up down in the dirt this time, but what we showed when we were in the saddle was a lot better. After all, at the end of a rodeo, the riders stand back up, dust themselves off, and get ready to do better the next time around.
Frederic Vasseur, Team Principal: "The results may say we finish this race outside of the top ten, but we can at least point to many positives. We looked a lot more competitive compared to the previous rounds and we were able to be in the fight for a points finish for most of the afternoon. We move on to the final two races of the season aware that a lot of work is still ahead of us, but knowing we are moving in the right direction."
Jody Egginton (Technical Director): "Today's race did not provide the result we wanted, which is disappointing especially given the performance shown up to this point in Austin. Pierre had a reasonably strong race early on but ran out of tyres in the last few laps, which meant he was unable to defend against the cars behind who were on fresher tyres. Ultimately, he was forced to retire due to the damage sustained from contact with Perez. Dany's race started to come together in the last ten laps, but with the yellow flags at Turn 12 in the last two laps of the race, opportunities to make a pass for P10 were limited. The move that he made on Perez was deemed too aggressive and we got a time penalty of five seconds, which puts us out of the points. We unfortunately lost a position in the Constructors' Championship here in the USA, but there are two races to go to recover and we will be working hard to make sure we are well prepared to do this."
Toyoharu Tanabe (Honda F1 Technical Director): "Once again today, Max Verstappen delivered a strong performance to finish on the podium in third place. It's a good result, maybe a bit disappointing, as we felt he had a chance of taking second place at the end, but unfortunately, the yellow flags prevented that. He was quick all weekend. Alex Albon unfortunately dropped to last after the collision at the start, but he drove very well to fight his way up the order to finish fifth. As for Toro Rosso, Pierre was in the points for most of the race, so it was disappointing that both cars failed to score, as for a moment it looked as though Kvyat would get the last point for tenth. Finally, congratulations to Lewis Hamilton on his incredible achievement."
George Russell finished 17th and Robert Kubica did not finish the United States Grand Prix. The Brit started 18th and Robert 19th on the grid, both on the medium Pirelli tyre. George ran a two-stop race, pitting first for the hard Pirelli tyre on lap 23 and once again for the soft on lap 46. Robert pitted on lap 11 for the hard Pirelli tyre, but was retired from the race due to a hydraulic leak.
Dave Robson, Senior Race Engineer: Today we simply struggled for pace, not helped by the gusty conditions which made the car difficult to drive, and which were punishing for the tyres. We had hoped to one stop the race, but the high tyre degradation made that almost impossible.
Both drivers raced hard and fairly at the beginning of the race with George eventually getting the better of Robert with the help of DRS. Unfortunately, we had to retire Robert's car with a hydraulic issue shortly after half distance. This was very disappointing, and we will need to look at the problem and ensure that it doesn't happen again. George drove well in the difficult circumstances, but we couldn't give him the car today to allow him to race. He was able to take a place from Magnussen by managing his car well and taking it to the end. Whilst this feels like a hollow victory now, it is all valuable experience which will stand him and the team in good stead for the future.
Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas won the United States Grand Prix with a two-stopper, while his team mate Lewis Hamilton claimed his sixth title after finishing in second place with a one-stopper. As has often been the case at the Circuit of the Americas, there was a wide variety of strategies seen all the way down the field today, with a tense tactical battle between the top three that came down to the final few laps.
Bottas started from pole but slipped behind his team mate after making an extra pit stop. The Finn subsequently took advantage of his fresher tyres to claim the lead close to the end of the race.
Hamilton was one of five drivers in the top 10 of the grid to start on the medium tyre, but he completed a longer opening stint than his rivals before switching to the hard for a one-stopper, which required perfect tyre management.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen was locked in a tactical battle with Bottas for most of the race on a similar medium-hard-medium two-stop strategy, but he could not get past Hamilton at the finish and ended up third.
Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, who finished fourth, adopted a different two-stop strategy, using all three nominated compounds. During his final stint on the soft, he gained the extra point for fastest race lap.
Behind him, Red Bull's Alex Albon finished fifth, having been last after his early pit stop on lap one following some contact. He completed a three-stopper in the end: the only driver to do so.
In total, there were five different strategies in the top six: underlining the multiplicity of approaches in evidence at the United States Grand Prix.
Weather conditions for the race were similarly warm to yesterday, which had an effect on tyre behaviour by favouring the harder compounds.
Mario Isola: "The final few laps in particular were extremely tense, as we all waited to see if Lewis Hamilton could make a one-stopper work to win the race, against drivers on much fresher tyres behind him. He didn't quite make it to the top step of the podium but it was still a spectacular fight where strategy was all-important, so big congratulations to Lewis for a very well-deserved sixth title after a thrilling grand prix. Congratulations of course to Valtteri as well for winning the race with a completely different strategy. In the end, the relatively warm conditions, after a very cool start to the weekend, meant that it was a close call between one and two stops using the harder compounds: with two of the three podium finishers eventually opting for a two-stopper. However, we witnessed a wide variety of strategies all the way down the grid with close competition from start to finish, which is exactly what we all want to see."
