Red Bull\u2019s Max Verstappen dominated the US Grand Prix from pole position on Sunday, leading every lap to take another significant chunk out of Oscar Piastri\u2019s Formula One championship lead on a perfect weekend in Texas.
\nMcLaren\u2019s Piastri finished fifth with his teammate and closest rival Lando Norris second after passing Ferrari\u2019s Charles Leclerc, last year\u2019s winner, five laps from the chequered flag.
\nPiastri now leads Britain\u2019s Norris by 14 points with five rounds and two sprints remaining, while Verstappen has slashed his gap to the Australian to 40 after being 104 behind at the end of August.
\nVerstappen also won the Saturday sprint from pole position at Austin\u2019s Circuit of the Americas, while the McLarens collided and retired, on a weekend of maximum points for the four-times world champion. McLaren have already sealed the constructors\u2019 title.
\nVerstappen says the title chance is there
\n\u201cFor sure, the chance is there,\u201d Verstappen said of the title battle. \u201cWe just need to try and deliver these weekends until the end.
\n\u201cWe will try whatever we can. It\u2019s exciting,\u201d he added after his third win in the last four races and 68th of his career.
\nPiastri said he still had full confidence in his ability to become Australia\u2019s first champion since Alan Jones in 1980, and no worries.
\n\u201cI\u2019d still rather be where I am than the other two,\u201d added the 24-year-old.
\nNorris lost out to Leclerc at the start and then took 21 laps to find a way back past as the Monegasque, on the faster but less durable soft tyres, held a defensive masterclass.
\nLeclerc then battled with Lewis Hamilton, who started on mediums, before pitting on lap 23 and coming back out in ninth place with his teammate moving up to third and Piastri to fourth.
\nVerstappen by then was 10 seconds down the road from his closest rival.
\nOnce the rest of the frontrunners had made their pitstops, Leclerc was again second on the road \u2014 but more than six seconds behind Verstappen \u2014 with Norris third and having to overtake all over again with a track limits warning hanging over him.
\nJob done, Norris pulled away and finished 7.9 seconds behind Verstappen and 7.4 ahead of the Ferrari.
\n\u201cIt was tough. We did everything we could,\u201d he said of a battle that gave the fans some excitement as Verstappen completed lap after lap largely absent from the global television feed.
\n\u201cI expected a slightly easier second attempt to get through, but it wasnt the case. Charles drove a very good race. It was good fun, good battles. So we have to take second. Not a lot more we couldve done today.\u201d
\nMcLaren team boss Andrea Stella said, however, that Norris could have fought for the win had he not been held up by the Ferrari.
\nHamilton was fourth, with Piastri just 1.1 seconds behind, and George Russell \u2014 winner last time out in Singapore \u2014 taking the chequered flag in sixth for Mercedes.
\nRed Bull\u2019s Yuki Tsunoda finished seventh, ahead of Sauber\u2019s Nico Hulkenberg and Haas\u2019s Oliver Bearman. Fernando Alonso took the final point for Aston Martin.
\nThe virtual safety car was deployed on lap seven when Mercedes\u2019 Italian rookie Kimi Antonelli and Williams\u2019 Carlos Sainz collided, with the Spaniard retiring after trying to overtake on the inside for seventh place.
\nStewards handed Sainz a five-place grid penalty at next weekend\u2019s Mexican Grand Prix, plus two penalty points, for causing the collision.
\nSainz\u2019s teammate Alex Albon had also been caught up in a first corner collision with Sauber\u2019s Brazilian rookie Gabriel Bortoleto.
\nThe weekend was declared a heat hazard, although the air temperature during the race was lower than feared at around 28.6 degrees Celsius.<\/p>\n
Red Bull fined 50,000 euros, half suspended, for grid breach
\nRed Bull were fined 50,000 euros ($58,300), with half suspended, for a grid breach before the start of the US Grand Prix.
\nStewards said a Red Bull team member re-entered the gate well area near the grid position of McLaren\u2019s Lando Norris after the formation lap had started and as marshals began to close the gate.
\nThe reason for doing so was not disclosed in the statement.
\nSources from more than one team told Reuters, however, that McLaren had placed a marker to help Norris line up his car correctly on the grid and the Red Bull employee had wanted to remove it.
\nThere was no official comment from either team, with Red Bull principal Laurent Mekies speaking to reporters before the stewards\u2019 decision and giving no details pending the outcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Red Bull\u2019s Max Verstappen dominated the US Grand Prix from pole position on Sunday, leading every lap to take another significant chunk out of Oscar Piastri\u2019s Formula One championship lead on a perfect weekend in Texas. McLaren\u2019s Piastri finished fifth with his teammate and closest rival Lando Norris second after passing Ferrari\u2019s Charles Leclerc, last …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":88431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88462,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88428\/revisions\/88462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}