Verstappen’s victory in Austin reduces the gap in the drivers’ championship to 40 points behind Oscar Piastri, with five races remaining.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen dominated the United States Grand Prix from pole position on Sunday, leading every lap to take another significant chunk out of Oscar Piastri’s Formula One championship lead in a perfect weekend in Texas.
McLaren’s Piastri finished fifth with teammate and closest rival Lando Norris, seconds after passing Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, last year’s winner, five laps from the checkered flag.
Recommended stories
list of 4 itemsend of list
Piastri now leads Britain’s Norris by 14 points with five rounds and two sprints remaining, while Verstappen has reduced his gap over the Australian to 40 after being 104 behind at the end of August.
Verstappen also won Saturday’s sprint from pole position at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas, as the McLarens crashed and retired, in a top-scoring weekend for the four-time world champion.
McLaren has already sealed the constructors’ title.
Verstappen says the chance to win the title is there
“Without a doubt, the possibility is there,” Verstappen said of the title battle. “We just have to try to see these weekends through to the end.
“We will try everything we can. It’s exciting,” he added after his third victory in the last four races and the 68th of his career.
Piastri said he still had full confidence in his ability to become Australia’s first champion since Alan Jones in 1980.
“I still prefer to be where I am than the other two,” the 24-year-old added.
Norris lost to Leclerc at the start and then took 21 laps to find a way to come back while the Monegasque, with faster but less durable soft tires, gave a defensive masterclass.
Leclerc then battled with Lewis Hamilton, who started medium, before pitting on lap 23 and returning in ninth, with his teammate moving up to third and Piastri to fourth.
Verstappen, by then, was 10 seconds behind his closest rival.
Once the rest of the frontrunners made their pit stops, Leclerc was second again on the road, but more than six seconds behind Verstappen, with Norris third and having to overtake again with a track limits warning hanging over him.
Job done, Norris pulled away and finished 7.9 seconds behind Verstappen and 7.4 ahead of the Ferrari.
“It was tough. We did everything we could,” he said of a battle that gave fans some excitement as Verstappen completed lap after lap, largely absent from the global television broadcast.
“I was hoping for a slightly easier second attempt to pass, but that wasn’t the case. Charles had a very good race. It was a lot of fun, good battles. So we have to come second. We couldn’t have done much more today.”
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella said, however, that Norris could have challenged for victory if the Ferrari had not slowed him down.
Hamilton was fourth, with Piastri just 1.1 seconds behind, and George Russell, winner last time out in Singapore, took the checkered flag in sixth for Mercedes.
Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda finished seventh, ahead of Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg and Haas’ Oliver Bearman. Fernando Alonso took the last point for Aston Martin.
The virtual safety car was deployed on lap seven when Mercedes’ Italian rookie Kimi Antonelli and Williams’ Carlos Sainz collided, with the Spaniard retiring after attempting to overtake on the inside for seventh place.
The stewards imposed a five-place grid penalty on Sainz for next weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix, plus two penalty points, for causing the collision.
Sainz’s teammate Alex Albon was also caught in a first-corner collision with Sauber’s Brazilian rookie Gabriel Bortoleto.
The weekend was declared dangerous because of the heat, although the air temperature during the race was lower than feared, around 28.6 degrees Celsius (83.5 Fahrenheit).
