It was first blood to Max Verstappen, as the Formula One championship run-in opened with the Red Bull driver enjoying his first win since June and his most comfortably controlled drive since then, with a victory in the sprint race at the US Grand Prix. However, his title rival Lando Norris returned fire later in the day, taking pole position for Sunday with Verstappen second on the grid.
The sprint race was an impressively dominant victory at the Circuit of the Americas. After beating Norris into third, Verstappen extended his championship lead and demonstrated the Red Bull is once more on fine form. Norris lost second place to Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz on the final lap but made up for it in qualifying.
Related: McLaren’s ‘tea tray’ complaints show F1 row is brewing in title fight
Verstappen maintained his unbeaten record in the short-form format this season and was in control from pole to flag; once leading from the off he was unchallenged across the 19-lap dash. Norris chased him hard, moving from fourth to second with a blistering start but could then make no dent in the Red Bull lead and with his tyres shot toward the end, was powerless against Sainz.
The win was just the opening Verstappen required to the six-meeting title-deciding finale that will close the season. He extended his lead over Norris to 54 points, with a further 172 still on the table. While he outscored Norris by only two points, most importantly he prevented the British driver from narrowing the gap.
Equally importantly for Verstappen and Red Bull, it indicated the limited upgrades the team brought to the race in an effort to solve the balance issues with which their car has been suffering, appear to have been successful, demonstrating the command at the front of the field he enjoyed in the first half of the season.
This was acknowledged by a beaming Verstappen. “It feels a bit like old times,” he said. “I am very happy, finally we were racing again. Normally in the race we are always looking back but now we could do our own race.”
Yet Norris bounced back in qualifying to take first place, beating Verstappen by only 0.031sec. The McLaren driver set the early pace in the shootout for pole, and then had fortune shine on him when George Russell crashed out in his Mercedes at the penultimate corner.
At the time, Verstappen looked set to beat Norris’s time, but all the drivers were forced to back off with Russell in the barriers following his high-speed shunt. That allowed Norris to take what could prove a pivotal pole, with Verstappen joining him on the front row.
Sainz finished third for Ferrari, one spot ahead of Charles Leclerc with Norris’s McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri fifth. Lewis Hamilton has won a record five times in Austin, but the seven-time world champion endured a horror show that left him qualifying in 19th.
“What has happened to this car, man?” Hamilton said over the radio after he finished six-tenths behind Russell in the other Mercedes. Russell, who progressed to Q3 and, despite his late crash, finished sixth. Hamilton will be bumped up one place to 18th with Liam Lawson sent to the back for taking on a number of new engine parts in his RB.
Hamilton blamed his shock result on a suspension failure he sustained in the earlier sprint race. “In the sprint we had some sort of failure from the formation lap on the front suspension,” he said. “I had that throughout the sprint race, and that made the balance really difficult. The car was a nightmare in qualifying. I should probably start in the pit lane, otherwise I won’t be going anywhere from where I am.”
