Author: Giles Richards

• Four-time champion has won past two races to close gap

• Norris plays down McLaren prioritising teammate Piastri

Lando Norris has brushed off suggestions that McLaren would prioritise his teammate Oscar Piastri in the world championship fight after a resurgent Max Verstappen has emerged as a rival contender.

Norris said the Dutchman was now in a position to defend his title, as the drivers prepare for what is likely to be the most gruelling meeting of the year in Singapore, with temperatures soaring.

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It is hard to believe a return to F1 is not on the cards for one of the most successful team principals, but where will he go?

When Christian Horner announced to the staff at Red Bull he had been dismissed by the company to whom he had dedicated 20 years of his life, he was, understandably, reduced to tears. On Monday that parting was formally sealed with a multimillion-pound settlement and Horner is free to move on. It is all but impossible to imagine he will not attempt to hurl himself back into Formula One, doubtless spurred-on by having a point to make to his former employer.

On Monday Horner and Red Bull’s parent company, Red Bull GmbH, announced they had reached an agreement worth £80m to end his career with the team, after he had been removed from his post as team principal shortly after the British GP in July.

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• Former team principal was sacked in July

• Agreement allows 51-year-old to return to F1 next season

Christian Horner has formally left the Red Bull Formula One team with what is understood to be an £80m settlement after his dismissal in July as team principal.

Horner was relieved of “operational duties” by the team’s parent company, Red Bull GmbH, shortly after the British Grand Prix, concluding more than 18 months of turmoil.

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• Australian leads standings but crashed early in Baku

• Mistake ends driver’s 34-race points scoring streak

The McLaren team principal, Andrea Stella, has backed Oscar Piastri to come back strongly after crashing out of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, pointedly noting that even the seven-time champion Michael Schumacher made similar errors.

Piastri leads the world championship, but endured a shocking weekend in Baku, where the race was won by Max Verstappen from pole. Piastri crashed out in qualifying leaving him ninth on the grid and on Sunday made a false start and the car entered anti-stall, dropping him to the back of the field.

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• Norris finished seventh in Baku after Piastri’s first-lap exit

• ‘I’m doing the best I can. I don’t care how people look at it’

Lando Norris dismissed suggestions he should have taken greater advantage of a chance to narrow the gap to his title rival Oscar Piastri after the Australian crashed out of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, with the British driver insisting he did not care how his performance was evaluated.

The race was won by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen but behind him Piastri crashed on the opening lap. Norris, who trailed his McLaren teammate by 31 points going into the meeting, started in seventh but finished only in the same position, taking just six points from Piastri.

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• Red Bull driver leads from pole to flag to cut title lead

• Piastri out on first lap but Norris can finish only seventh

Oscar Piastri damned his own performance at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix as characterised by lapses in judgment and silly mistakes, but the world championship leader still emerged from the crash that left the front of the Australian’s car in pieces with the bulk of his title advantage intact – and on such fortune might this season yet turn.

Max Verstappen won the race in Baku with another dominant run from pole to flag to match his victory at the last round in Monza and with it bring the very slenderest suggestion that he may still be in the championship battle.

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• Session marred by driver mishaps, rain and six red flags

• McLaren drivers make big errors in marathon session

Misjudgment and error left Formula One’s leading lights flailing on the streets of Baku, but Max Verstappen delivered pole position for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix with the control and precision execution that was a salutary reminder of the mental strength that backs his undoubted talent.

Verstappen took the top spot after a dramatic and chaotic session on the testing street circuit, interrupted by a record six red-flag stoppages due to crashes. It concluded with a grid turned upside down and the two world championship rivals, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, left languishing in seventh and ninth.

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In his first interview since replacing Christian Horner, the Frenchman says his aim is simply to give Max Verstappen the fastest car on the F1 grid

Reaching the pinnacle of any sport might be considered a moment to savour and reflect. To luxuriate even, in the contentment so sparingly yielded at the highest level. None of which, strikingly, is the case for Laurent Mekies, the new team principal of Red Bull, who concedes only to an overwhelming, almost Sisyphean, commitment to moving ever forward, ever upward.

“There is no such thing as having made it, you always feel you are surviving,” he says. “You always feel that you should have done more yesterday, more a week ago. To step up next week, next month. You never feel you made it – never, never, never.”

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• Piastri says drivers not team will decide outcome of title

• Comments follow controversial swap by McLaren

Oscar Piastri has insisted that he and his McLaren teammate, Lando Norris, are in control of their own destiny as they fight for the Formula One world championship after the pair were involved in a highly controversial swap imposed by the team at the Italian Grand Prix.

Given the pair are in a two-horse race for the title, the question of team orders playing a potentially decisive role loomed large after Monza. Max Verstappen won the race but McLaren’s decision to have Piastri return second place to Norris, after the British driver lost the position due to a slow pit stop caused by a faulty wheel gun, was contentious.

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Returning from the summer break and with 10 races to go, there are plenty of targets remaining across the paddock besides McLaren’s shootout

Revitalised after the summer break, 10 races remain between this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix and the finale in Abu Dhabi in December – and it will be Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris going head to head for the title.

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Forty years ago, the 25-year-old Brazilian produced possibly the finest drive of his career, and it’s still vivid in the mind of his mechanic Chris Dinnage

As debut victories in Formula One go, few come close to the masterclass delivered by Ayrton Senna for Lotus at the Portuguese Grand Prix in 1985. A drive which still stands 40 years later as one of the defining moments of the Brazilian’s extraordinary career, not least when witnessed first-hand by No 1 mechanic in Estoril, Chris Dinnage.

“It was an exceptional performance by a gifted racing driver who had one mission and that was to win, to be the best,” says Dinnage. “I think there’s very few races since where you could say someone had such a command of what they were doing.”

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Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris have set up a potentially thrilling title race, Gabriel Bortoleto is one to watch, and Lewis Hamilton needs time off

Oscar Piastri Leading the world championship and has earned his place at the top. He has not only been quick in the best car on the grid, but consistent and calm. This has not been the stuff of fireworks, but relentless precision. His execution and attitude have no little of the Alain Prost about them and he is shaping up to be a similarly formidable opponent as The Professor.

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• ‘A shame for everyone,’ Red Bull driver insists

• George Russell says FIA ‘made the right call’

Max Verstappen condemned as unne­ces­sary the FIA decision to delay the start of the Belgian Grand Prix because of adverse weather conditions, but his view was countered by George ­Russell, a director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, who insisted any other call from the ­governing body would have been “stupidity” given the conditions and the dan­gerous nature of the Spa‑Francorchamps circuit.

The start was delayed by an hour and 20 minutes after rain swept into Spa just before the race. The FIA opted not to proceed after one formation lap because the visibility given the spray from the cars was so poor. The circuit is enormously fast and challenging and can be dangerous even in good conditions. There have been two fatalities in recent years, Anthoine Hubert in 2019 and Dilano van ’t Hoff in 2023.

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Bringing in a new team principal when developing a car for 2026 regulations might not be to world champion’s liking

Even as the reverberations from the shock sacking of Christian Horner as team principal of Red Bull are still being felt across Formula One and their thunderous echo remains, whether all this sound and fury will have been quite enough to keep Max Verstappen at the team remains a moot point.

When it was announced on Wednesday that Horner had been released from his post as team principal and chief executive of Red Bull after 20 years in charge and enormous success, pivotal to the decision was seemingly the desire to prevent the four-time world champion from being tempted away. Horner’s removal a price the parent company was willing to pay.

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Departure now leaves a question mark about the next chapter of one of the sport’s extraordinary success stories

The removal of Christian Horner from his post as team principal at Red Bull represents both the end of an era in Formula One and, in the short term, the most turbulent period in the team’s history. It carries an import that will be felt right across the sport, a significance in how it played out and what happens next as the team Horner built and led to such enormous success faces an uncertain future.

Horner has been at Red Bull since the team was formed in 2005 from the ashes of Jaguar, a team in no little disarray when Red Bull bought it. Horner was at the helm as it was transformed from an operation of 450 personnel, without so much as a win to their name, to one of 1,500 today that has won eight drivers’ titles and six constructors’ championships, and is one of the most extraordinary success stories in F1 history.

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