Rookie takes first podium in rain-hit United States Grand Prix as title leader extends advantage

The United States Grand Prix produced the first podium of a rookie’s career and the sixth win of the season for the championship leader, but it was the 40 minutes in between, with the race suspended and the Austin circuit under water, that decided both.

Mads Søndergaard, the 20-year-old Dane in his first season with a midfield team, started 14th and was running 11th when a storm arrived on lap 23 of 56 and the race was red-flagged with cars aquaplaning on the back straight. When it resumed behind the safety car, his team kept him out on intermediate tyres while the cars around him switched to full wets, and when the track began to dry on lap 38 he was the only driver in the top 10 who did not need to stop again.

“The strategist asked me whether I could keep it on the road on inters and I said yes before I had thought about it,” Søndergaard said. “Then I had ten laps where I thought I had made a very big mistake. Then it dried. I will take the credit now, but it was the pit wall’s call.”

The championship leader, who had led from pole before the stoppage, was never seriously threatened after the restart and won by 11 seconds from his team-mate. The result extends his lead to 31 points over the second-placed driver, who finished fifth after a slow stop, with four races remaining and a maximum of 112 points still available.

Søndergaard’s third place was the first podium for his team since 2021 and the first for a Danish driver in Formula One since the 1990s. His team principal, Gianluca Ferretti, said the call to stay out had been “50-50, and I have made that call the wrong way more times than I have made it the right way”. The team moves to sixth in the constructors’ championship, which is worth an estimated £12m in prize money.

The race was also notable for a collision on the first lap after the restart between two cars fighting for seventh, which eliminated both and brought a 10-second penalty for the driver the stewards held responsible. His team said it would not appeal.

The red flag itself drew criticism from several drivers, who said the race should have been stopped two laps earlier. “There was a river across turn 11 and we were still racing,” one said. The FIA said the decision had been “taken on the basis of the information available at the time” and that it would review the data.

Søndergaard, who had never been to Texas before this week, was asked what he would remember. “The anthem on the podium,” he said. “I did not know all the words. I will learn them.”