By Robert Haile

Three teams in the top four of qualifying and a newly crowned world champion starting sixth the Circuit of the Americas provided plenty of excitement as Max Verstappen eventually won.

Max Verstappen might have claimed a routine Sprint Race win but the Grand Prix was a different story.

Starting in sixth the Red Bull world champion had to battle through the field and was almost hunted down by Lewis Hamilton in the final laps of the race claim his 50th victory in Formula One.

Verstappen said: “It feels incredible to win my 50th Grand Prix here in Austin. I’m very proud, of course, but I want to keep pushing for more. Starting in P6 today was interesting, I worked my way slowly through to the front.

“We didn’t have a massive pace advantage today and I was struggling with my brakes. I didn’t have the same feeling in the car as I did yesterday, so that made the race much tougher than anticipated.

“You could see it was very close at the end there. We had to rely on the strategy today and the team did a great job with that.”

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc started on pole with McLaren’s Lando Norris next to him in second while Mercedes Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz filled in the second row.

Four drivers started from the pit lane as Aston Martin and Haas decided to make changes after qualifying.

The McLaren driver got the jump on scarlet Ferrari and took the lead off the line as Hamilton and Sainz clashed.

The race then fell into its rhythm with Verstappen and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso moving through the grid.

All the drama came towards the end of the race with Verstappen leading from a charging Hamilton who had passed Norris and a battling Sainz.

While Sergio Perez had Pole sitter Leclerc for fifth as George Russell pressured the Ferrari driver.

Eighth and ninth were fought over by Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll while AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda took the last of the points.

Williams’ drivers Alex Albon missed out on a point due to a five second penalty for track limits as Logan Sargeant followed him home in twelfth.

Nico Hulkenberg’s Haas took thirteenth with Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu behind for Alfa Romeo with Kevin Magnussen’s Haas and AlphaTauri’s returning Daniel Ricciardo last of runners.

Alpine’s Esteban Ocon was an early retirement due to damage with McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso both retiring.

After the race Hamilton and Leclerc were disqualified for excessive wear to the plank under the car after an inspection from the FIA Technical Team.

In the battle for second Sergio Perez has increased his lead to 39 points ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso is 18 points behind in fourth.

With the Constructors Championship sealed the battle for second is heating up and Mercedes lead with a 22 point gap to Ferrari in third while McLaren have overtaken Aston Martin and now 6 points ahead of their British rivals.

Formula 1 crosses the border and heads to Mexico City for a straight forward Mexican Grand Prix on October 27-29 where Perez will hope for victory in front of his home crowd.