Plus: Oscar Piastri’s difficulties continue, Bearman calls Tsunoda ‘dangerous.’
Max Verstappen dominated the weekend’s action at the United States Grand Prix to continue his surge in form and get in the mix for a title that looked an impossibility just two months ago. Autoweek rounds up the main talking points from the Circuit of the Americas.
Maximum attack
Sprint Pole. Sprint Win. Pole position. Grand Prix win. Every single lap led. This was a crushing display by the reigning world champion who is now firmly a contender for a fifth successive world title. Across just four events, Max Verstappen has slashed his deficit to Oscar Piastri from 104 points to just 40, and now looms large in the mirrors of a McLaren team that has stumbled in spite of its Constructors’ title success.
Verstappen doubted after the pre-summer Hungarian Grand Prix that Red Bull could take another win in 2025, but the floor update introduced onto Red Bull’s RB21, in combination with a stronger weekend starting point, has transformed its prospects. Verstappen has been a contender for victory everywhere since, denied only a clean sweep of the last four events by George Russell’s brilliance in Singapore.
“We found a good way with the car,” Verstappen said. “It’s as simple as that. Of course, we put some upgrades on the car, but we understood our car a bit better where we wanted to perform better. Every weekend, we try to achieve it. Some weekends, it's better than others, but in general, it's been way more straightforward the last few weekends compared to before. So that's what we need to try and extract out of it now every single weekend.”
What’s next? Mexico City, where Verstappen has a strong record, and another Sprint weekend in São Paulo, where any wet weather—as in 2024—will surely play into the hands of Verstappen. Las Vegas, where McLaren expects to struggle, before trips to Qatar and Abu Dhabi. No-one has ever come from 104 points behind to take a title. Verstappen’s ability, Red Bull’s improvements, and McLaren going through a sticky spell, is making the impossible now look realistic.
“I think we need to be perfect till the end to have a chance,” Verstappen said. “Yeah, we caught up a lot. But at the same time, the [performance] gaps are very small. I think every weekend you need to try and be perfect. And that's what we'll try to do till the end.”
Norris prevails in Leclerc battle
The most entertaining element of a relatively soporific race around COTA was the battle for second between Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc. The pair adopted divergent tire strategies, with Norris running medium/soft, and Leclerc going soft/medium. Leclerc got the jump at the start, Norris eventually found a way past mid-race, until Leclerc’s earlier stop gave him the undercut through the pit phase.
Norris emerged behind once more but remained patient and reclaimed second in the closing laps. Despite being winless since the summer recess, the result nonetheless enabled Norris to trim Piastri’s title advantage to 14 points.
“A good result in the end,” Norris said. “For a minute, I was not expecting to finish second. I thought he [Leclerc] was just a bit too quick for us, but to get back into second and get past was perfect.”
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella suggested Norris had the pace to challenge Verstappen for victory had he not dropped behind Leclerc at the start.
“Today is a relatively reassuring race because I think without having to fight with Charles—which was certainly an entertaining fight itself—I think Lando had the pace to win the race today,” Stella said. “I think we are reassured that the pace was sufficient to fight for the victory.”
Stella also suggested that McLaren could have unlocked further performance from the MCL39 had it not been slightly cautious over its ride height—given how the bumpy nature of COTA can cause plank wear—in the wake of the lack of data due to its double first-lap exit from the Sprint race. Whatever the causes, McLaren has to arrest Verstappen’s momentum in double quick time.
Piastri’s difficult run continues
Since his controlled victory at the first post-summer event in the Netherlands, Oscar Piastri has struggled for form and results. A low-key run in Italy was followed by his horror show in Azerbaijan, a fourth in Singapore, and now a fifth place in Austin that was comfortably his least competitive display of the year in terms of outright performance.
Piastri was never in the mix across the weekend at a circuit where he struggled in previous years, with sixth on the grid converted into only fifth in the race, the sole gain coming at the expense of Russell on the opening lap. He has scored only 37 points in the four grands prix since his Zandvoort victory, compared to Verstappen’s 101.
“In qualifying trim it’s been a little bit tougher for us the last few weekends, and this weekend for whatever reason I’ve just not gelled with the car at all,” Piastri said. “I don’t have any great ideas at the moment, qualifying was clean from my side, just the pace wasn’t there and honestly a pretty similar story in the race.
“I think this layout is quite interesting, there’s a lot of very high-speed corners with a lot of ride content, there’s a lot of very low speed corners, so you need to be good at both ends of the spectrum and actually there’s not a whole lot in that medium-speed range. I think also for me it’s not been a particularly happy hunting ground my whole F1 career so in some ways I can’t say I’m shocked that this has been a tough weekend, but obviously I was hoping for more.”
Piastri explained that Verstappen closing in is “not necessarily” his biggest concern, more understanding the overall lack of pace.
“I think for me the biggest focus is just trying to work out why this weekend was tough and try and get back on the form we've had earlier in the season,” Piastri said. “So that's my biggest focus and if we can find that again then the results will take care of themselves.”
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella backed Piastri to bounce back.
“I think we know, with Oscar, that when the conditions are such that we have low grip, you really need to challenge the car, lean on the understeer, oversteer, locking,” Stella said. “This is an area of his driving that has an opportunity to improve, and in Oscar’s standards, this means that he will improve pretty fast, and I think today we got quite a lot of information that adds to the information we got yesterday.”
Bearman critical of ‘dangerous and desperate’ Tsunoda
Oliver Bearman made it successive ninth place finishes for Haas, showing strong pace throughout the weekend, but was critical of Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda after an incident between the pair.
Bearman was chasing down Tsunoda in the battle for seventh but took to the inside grass at turn 15 in avoidance of the Red Bull driver and spun. Bearman recovered, but relinquished eighth to Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg, and was unable to advance back higher than ninth across the remaining laps. The incident between Bearman and Tsunoda was not even noted by stewards but the Haas racer was left frustrated.
“To be disappointed with P9 is a good thing, P7 was not unrealistic result,” Bearman said. “I had a difficult first stint but found a groove going into the second one, and the incident with Yuki, what he did was quite dangerous, it’s against the spirit of how we go racing and the image we should project to kids growing up karting and stuff. This is not the way we go racing, he was swerving all over the place for a few laps and when I finally did stick my nose in and attempt a move, he moved in reaction, didn’t leave a car’s width, and that’s unfair, not allowed, and it could have caused a huge crash without my quick avoidance.”
Bearman added that Tsunoda was driving “maybe a little bit desperately, and that was shown in his defense,” while pointing to Tsunoda deciding to battling the out-of-sync Charles Leclerc after the Ferrari driver made his pit stop.
“I feel like he has this issue with other drivers, he was fighting against Charles, who was not even in the [same] race with him—like, why are you defending from him? It’s just not thinking forward… silly driving in my opinion.”
Esteban Ocon had a low-key weekend in the other Haas, pointing to a loss of aero balance in high-speed sections, and team boss Ayao Komatsu is optimistic of remedying the situation.
“We need to bring Esteban up—he’s struggling a little bit with a certain feeling in the car, but you can see the potential is there,” Komatsu said. “I don’t see any reason, if we address that, why we can’t get both cars into the points.”
Sainz goes from hero to zero
Carlos Sainz was one of the standout drivers of Saturday’s Sprint Race as he picked his way through the Turn 1 melee to score third for Williams, but on Sunday he was the one who caused the drama. Sainz was pursuing Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli for seventh spot but a clumsy lunge into turn 15 only succeeded in causing terminal damage to his Williams while in turn spinning the youngster and ruining his race too.
“I tried to leave some space for Carlos at turn 15 as I saw him coming,” Antonelli said. “I managed to do so but we still made contact and that put an end to any realistic chance of scoring good points.”
Sainz was sanguine about the clash.
“I was feeling confident, I had a lot of pace in the car and had done a similar move on Ollie [Bearman] in Turn 15,” Sainz said. “I went for the same move on Antonelli, he started closing the door earlier than expected and I locked up, and we collided, I think the incident looks more bad than what it is as it’s just a small lock-up with high consequences, but it’s a pity as we were on a good weekend.
“Its racing, one day you look like a hero and the next day people will criticise you and bring you own, the next day a good result and it’s the opposite.”
Category: General Sports
