George Russell is climbing the ladder back to the points places and his next rung is the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard doesn't put up much of a fight, given his struggles this weekend. Russell is up to 11th now.

Meanwhile, Nico Hulkenberg is battling hard with the RB of Yuki Tsunoda. The pair are playing fair and racing cleanly, with the Japanese driver eventually keeping hold of position.

Andrew Benson
BBC F1 correspondent in Austin

This is Mercedes' worst weekend almost ever, I think.

It's just quite shocking how badly it's going for them.

Toto Wolff: "Total joke with the penalty George, total joke"

Charles Leclerc has been told by his pit wall that his medium tyres are looking good and that he is "driving well". The race leader is 7.4 seconds down the road from Max Verstappen.

Marc Priestley
Former F1 mechanic on BBC Radio 5 Live

Russell went down the inside [of Bottas], very similar to the one we all talked about at the beginning of this race. Russell almost pushed Bottas out the circuit, it seemed relatively innocuous to me.

The radio message comes in to George Russell from Mercedes to tell him of that five-second penalty for his move on Valtteri Bottas.

His reply? A simple: "What?!"

Team principal Toto Wolff calls it "a total joke".

A quick decision by the stewards - five-second penalty for George Russell for forcing another driver off the track. It did look like the Mercedes was ahead of the Sauber...

Sam: Can anybody explain how Verstappen isn’t under investigation for forcing Lando off? All four wheels off the track, never going to make the corner and gave no space.

Charles Leclerc is five seconds clear of Max Verstappen and is comfortably leading this race in Austin from championship leader.

George Russell is on the move again. The Mercedes takes a bite out of the Williams of Franco Colapinto and is now 13th place.

Hang on, race control are going to have a look at Russell's overtake on Valtteri Bottas from a lap earlier.

Image source, Getty Images

Marc Priestley
Former F1 mechanic on BBC Radio 5 Live

The two McLarens are going to have to be thinking of the bigger picture, the long game here.

They haven't got the pace necessarily to go and chase down the Ferraris and Max Verstappen so maybe they can try to find an offset in terms of their tyre performance later in the race.

What are McLaren thinking for Oscar Piastri? The Australian is running in fifth place on those medium tyres.

Meanwhile, George Russell has lifted himself up the order from his pit lane start and has just overtaken Valtteri Bottas' Sauber for 14th place. The Mercedes man is on the hard compound.

Engineer: "Feedback on Plan A, please?"

Piastri: "Ambitious"

Marc Priestley
Former F1 mechanic on BBC Radio 5 Live

[On Sainz] Smelling of fuel is an odd one, that would signify something is very strange and mechanically perhaps going wrong.

Normally the delivery of power is something electronically mapped into your power unit. They don't seem to have an easy option or solution at this point.

Andrew Benson
BBC F1 correspondent in Austin

Fernando Alonso's having a really difficult race so far.

He made a good start, it looked like he was going to make up some places at the first corner but he kind of got off line as he was coming through turn one, got pushed a bit wide and then he struggled all the way through the Esses, lost two or three places, dropped down from seventh to 10th.

Now he's lost another place to Nico Hulkenberg, he's not lapping very quickly, it doesn't look like the Aston Martin's in particularly good shape today.

Liam Lawson was called "an idiot" by Fernando Alonso yesterday, the Spaniard also saying he was driving an "Alpha Tauri". But now the New Zealander has got a small bite of revenge by passing the 43-year-old on track. Lawson is now 11th, Fernando has to settle for 12th place.

So that issue for Carlos Sainz seems to have been rectified - his engineers thanking the Spaniard for "hanging in there". Sainz has pulled out a few seconds on Lando Norris now, so is safely holding on to his podium place for now.

Jeremiah Kariuki: What a shame that instead of Hamilton climbing up the positions, the car heads to the gravel bringing out a Safety car. What a bad day for him.

A green Sauber has taken a spin at the first corner. It's Zhou Guanyu, who now needs to reverse his car - and not roll back down the hill - to forward other drivers. He's back on his. but is now down in last place.

Charles Leclerc is continuing to churn out the fastest laps as Max Verstappen chases his Ferrari from second.

Image source, Getty Images

"No power on the exit of the corners"

"Smells like fuel"

The Ferrari phone is ringing but it isn't good news for the Italian team. Carlos Sainz says he can smell fuel in the car, but his engineer says to just hang on in there. Meanwhile, Lando Norris in fourth is gaining on him...

Image source, Getty Images