Formula One's 2023 World Champion, Max Verstappen, notched his 50th career victory Sunday afternoon at the Circuit of the America's outside of Austin, Texas. Verstappen claimed the provisional pole for the United States Grand Prix on Friday afternoon but started the race on Sunday sixth on the grid after incurring a penalty for exceeding track limits in Turn 19 during Q3 of qualifying.

"Starting in P6 today was interesting, I worked my way slowly through to the front," said the three time World Champion. "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 and there too."

Verstappen and his Red Bull teammate used a medium-medium-hard tire strategy, one of the two popular strategies on Sunday afternoon.

"Before the race all our simulations were telling us that the two stop was the fastest race for us and that's what we committed to. The debate was, 'do we run the hard in the middle stint or the medium?'," said Red Bull Team Principal, Christian Horner. "We knew going up against Lando that they committed to the two hards so we felt going medium, medium was the best strategy."

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton finished second. However, it was later announced, as detailed on formula1.com, that:

Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc have both been disqualified from the United States Grand Prix. Following the race in Austin, their cars were inspected and irregularities were spotted by the FIA Technical team after a plank wear inspection was carried out.

Following the disqualifications, Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director made this announcement:

We are of course naturally very disappointed to lose our podium finish. Unfortunately, it is one of the pitfalls of the sprint format where we have a solitary hour of running before parc fermé. Without running at a race fuel load in FP1, combined with a circuit as bumpy as this and the parts of the track where the drivers have to put the car during the Grand Prix, have contributed to the higher than expected wear levels. We will go away and learn from this but also take the positives from our experience as a whole.

With the disqualifications, the final two podium positions went to McLaren's Lando Norris (P2) and Ferrari's Carlos Sainz (P3).

Starting outside the front row Norris made use of a good start and took the lead over pole sitter, Charles Leclerc, at race start. Norris held the lead position before being passed by Verstappen on Lap 28 of 56. Unlike Red Bull, Norris used a medium-hard-hard strategy.

"Another strong result for McLaren, which makes it four podiums in a row. It came in a race where we tried to go for the victory," said Andrea Stella, McLaren Racing Team Principal. "We pushed hard with Lando and potentially paid a price in terms of consistency in the stints, but this doesn't change the final result. It's encouraging to be competitive in a track that we didn't expect to suit our package."

Hamilton's Mercedes teammate, George Russell, rounded out the top 5 after the disqualifications.

Williams racing had a fantastic US Grand Prix with both drivers finishing in the top 10. Alex Albon finished ninth followed by rookie driver, Logan Sargeant, a native of the United States.

"After Leclerc and Hamilton's post-race disqualifications, we come away from Austin with double points for the team for the first time since the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix," said Dave Robson, Head of Williams Vehicle Performance. "It's also Logan's first point in Formula 1 and he becomes the first American to score a point since Michael Andretti at the 1993 Italian Grand Prix."

Aston Martin's Lance Stroll, who recently has had to navigate a few difficult weekends, finished seventh.

"Finishing after starting from last in the pitlane is a positive result after a tough couple of days here at COTA," said Stroll. "It's good to be back in the points after some difficult races. The set-up changes we made to optimise the performance have definitely put us in the right direction; we were much more competitive today."

Alpine's Pierre Gasly finished 6th with AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda finishing eighth.