The United States Grand Prix 2022 was the 19th round of the 2022 F1 season, and took place at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, USA, during the weekend of the 21st to the 23rd of October.
Max Verstappen won the race after starting in the 2nd position, followed by Lewis Hamilton, and Charles Leclerc completing the podium with an expectacular comeback, all the way from the 12th position of the grid.
Carlos Sainz started from the pole position, but didn't manage to cross the finish line, as he retired dure to damage caused by a collision with other cars, and had to retire on lap 1st.
Final results
Race evolution
Pit Stops
There were a total of 36 pit stops during the race.
The most popular pit stop windows were:
- Laps 9-15: 12 stops
- Laps 18-18: 8 stops
- Laps 32-36: 9 stops
The fastest pit stop was Yuki Tsunoda's, stopping the clock at 23.241 seconds during his pit stop on lap 33, while the slowest one was was Fernando Alonso's, who stopped the clock at 39.707 seconds, 16.466 seconds slower than Tsunoda, during his pit stop on lap 22.
These times include the time the driver spent going through the pit lane, as well as the actual time he stopped for the mechanics to work on his car.
Strategy
We saw a variety of options in terms of pit stop strategies during this race, however most drivers chose a 2 stops. Only 3 drivers tried a 1 stop, and 1 driver tried a 3 stops.
The race winner, Max Verstappen, was on a 2 stops strategy.
1 stop
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12Valtteri Bottas
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13Lance Stroll
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4Kevin Magnussen
2 stops
-
-Nicholas Latifi
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5Alexander Albon
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6Guanyu Zhou
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1Daniel Ricciardo
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9Yuki Tsunoda
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3Pierre Gasly
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1Lewis Hamilton
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1Max Verstappen
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5Sergio Pérez
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-Lando Norris
-
7Fernando Alonso
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2Sebastian Vettel
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11Esteban Ocon
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9Charles Leclerc
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1Mick Schumacher
3 stops
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1George Russell
Excluding those drivers who could not finish the race, those on a 1 stop strategy gained 4 positions on average, the ones on a 2 stops strategy gained 1.4 positions on average, while those on a 3 stops strategy lost an average of 1 positions.
Despite of the average possitons gained or lost, and considering a deeper analysis of the performance of each strategy, we consider the 2 stops strategy as the optimal for this race.
It is important to note that this might not always be the case for other races held at the Circuit of the Americas, as the conditions might change from year to year, in terms of wheel degradation, accidents, safety cars, etc.
Incidents
There race went on mostly with no incidents. Only 3 divers were involved in circumstances that were severe enough to prevented them from finishing the race.
These included, Lance Stroll, who retired dure to damage caused by a collision with other cars on lap 21, Valtteri Bottas, who lost control and spun off the track on lap 16, and Carlos Sainz, who retired dure to damage caused by a collision with other cars on lap 1.
Collision
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Lance StrollLap 21
Spun off
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Valtteri BottasLap 16
Collision damage
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Carlos SainzLap 1
Qualifying
Carlos Sainz managed to get the pole position by 0.065 seconds and a final lipe time of 1:34.356. Charles Leclerc was right behind him, helping Ferrari score a one-two and monopolize the first line of the grid.
The second line fo the grid was dominated by Red Bull, with Max Verstappen in third position, and Sergio Pérez in fourth.
But the team pairings didn't stop there, as the two Mercedess were right behind them, with Lewis Hamilton in fith position, and George Russell in sixth.
Track evolution
As the qualifying session went on, with the track rubbering in, and the drivers testing the limits of the grip of their cars, the times per lap dropped, and 11 out of the 15 drivers that took place in Q2 were able to improve their times.
The Q3 is the time were all the remaining drivers put all their cards on the table, even those with a superior car who might have been managing their times in Q1 and Q2 push their cars to the limit in Q3. It therefore comes as no surprise that all of the drivers that took place in Q3 managed to improve their times in this last session.