P1racenews AI automatic summary:
Mercedes came close to taking its first win of the season at the Circuit of the Americas.
Mercedes Team Principal, Toto Wolff, has defended the team’s strategy at the United States Grand Prix despite their narrow defeat to Max Verstappen. Hamilton was equipped with Medium tires while Verstappen had Hard tires. Mercedes had initially planned for a one-stop strategy but had to pit Hamilton earlier than expected due to the unexpected drop in his Medium tire performance. This decision compromised their ideal plan and dropped Hamilton behind Verstappen. Although Hamilton was able to close the gap towards the end of the race, he ran out of laps to launch a successful attack. Wolff acknowledged that they could have covered Verstappen earlier but stated that they didn’t know if they had the quicker car at that stage. Furthermore, Hamilton faced difficulties overtaking Lando Norris on the Hard compound tires before successfully making the move at Turn 1.
Source: RacingNews 365
