Max Verstappen leaves Brundle in awe: 'It was pure Max'

Kimi Antonelli confidently won the United States Grand Prix, but behind the Italian, there was a hard-fought battle for second place. Lando Norris was trying to hold on to second place on older tyres with Verstappen and Charles Leclerc both chasing him.

"With fresh tyres Max was inevitably very fast, and it initially appeared that he would be able to make up the extra 20 seconds he must spend in the pitlane for his second stop on Lap 31," Brundle began about Verstappen race at the Circuit of the Americas in his column for Sky Sports.

The did not hide his appreciation for Verstappen's move that got him up to second place momentarily. "I did the post-race interviews and Max did though beam a nice smile when I complimented him on his overtake of Lando Norris up into Turn 1. It was pure Verstappen, just as he looked highly likely to lose a position to Leclerc, he converted that into an overtake of the McLaren with a stunning and controlled slice while extremely late on the brakes."

In the end, Leclerc managed to get past the former four-time world champion thanks to his fresher tyres. Had there not been a VSC for Valtteri Bottas, Verstappen might have missed out on the podium, given how quickly Lewis Hamilton was closing in on the Dutchman in P4. The Briton crossed the finish line around a second behind the Red Bull Racing driver.

The Italian said that he was "a bit concerned in the beginning" when he saw Verstappen opt for a two-stop strategy last Sunday.

He explained: "But we were able to extend and actually the pace came back with the medium, and we were able to extend without losing too much time. So then, as you know, after doing the first stint on the medium, we were like, 'Oh, right, we're going to go for one-stop.' And the hard, to be fair, felt very robust, so I felt pretty confident to go all the way to the end."