Category: Formula 1

With four races left, divining the F1 title destination is tricky but the smart money would go on Lando Norris

Ordinarily at this point in the Formula One season, form has been settled. This year, with four meetings remaining, the title run-in reaches its decisive phase with a three-way fight between the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri and the Red Bull of Max Verstappen. Divining the outcome is a decidedly tricky affair.

As recently as the Dutch GP in August it appeared a two-way battle between the McLaren drivers would decide it. However, with Red Bull managing to apply upgrades that have unlocked the performance of the RB21, the equation is far more complex. Their car can now be as good, if not better, than the McLaren but the margins are small and neither team can be entirely sure who will have the edge on a given weekend.

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• British driver leads championship by one point

• Stella: ‘We have proven we have a car that can win races’

Lando Norris has said he is finally confident handling his McLaren car after a dominant victory at the Mexico City Grand Prix that moved him to the top of the world championship standings with four races remaining.

The British driver won at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez with a superb drive from pole to flag. With his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri finishing only fifth and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in third, the Briton now leads Piastri by one point and Verstappen by 36. Piastri had held the title lead since the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix but Norris has moved to the front as the championship enters its final run-in.

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• Marshals ran across track clearing debris at Mexico GP

• ‘I nearly hit one of them, honestly, it was so dangerous’

Liam Lawson issued a damning broadside after he narrowly missed hitting two marshals on track at the Mexico City Grand Prix, warning that he could have killed them and branding it dangerous and unacceptable.

In the race which was won in dominant form by McLaren’s Lando Norris, the Racing Bulls driver had started in 15th place but took damage on the opening lap and made an immediate pit stop.

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• Leclerc second; Verstappen third and Piastri fifth

• Norris now one point clear in championship battle

If timing is key in any race, Lando Norris might just have taken the bell with absolutely impeccable judgment. His victory at the Mexico City Grand Prix with a consummate drive from pole to flag has catapulted him into the lead of an intense title fight at exactly the right moment. Norris has momentum at the very point the championship enters its decisive phase.

With his title rivals Oscar Piastri – Norris’s McLaren teammate – managing only fifth and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen third at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Norris has the edge at a crucial juncture with four meetings remaining. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc finished in second, while Britain’s Oliver Bearman took a career-best fourth place with a superb drive for Haas.

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• McLaren’s title race leader Piastri in eighth; starts seventh

• Champion Max Verstappen qualifies in fifth

Lando Norris claimed pole position for the Mexico City Grand Prix, with a superb lap for McLaren at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. The Briton left his title rivals in his wake and in so doing earned a chance to make a major impact on the championship standings and potentially retake the lead.

Enjoying a huge boost to his world championship ambitions, Norris delivered perhaps his best lap of the season in qualifying, to beat the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton into second and third. Of greater import was that his fellow title protagonists Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri, Norris’s McLaren teammate, could manage only fifth and eighth fastest respectively.

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Cut-throat Red Bull driver will relish McLaren duo chase in Mexico City where he has won five of the last seven races

Enjoying a late surge out of the final bend, Max Verstappen is looming large in the mirrors of his championship rivals. The Dutchman is a threat beyond his formidable pace. An ominous, unsettling presence whose singular determination carries a weight of its own and at this weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix he will be hoping to put the hammer down once more.

Having all but written off his chances by mid-season, Verstappen and Red Bull have orchestrated a striking comeback. In closing down a 104-point gap to the championship leader, Oscar Piastri, to just 40 in the space of four races, the defending champion has left Piastri and his McLaren teammate, Lando Norris, as prey in his paws.

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In an extract from his new book, our Formula One correspondent tells how a race featuring Graham Hill, John Surtees and Jim Clark chimes with this year’s title fight

Formula One entered the 1964 season finale at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City with a first for the championship: three drivers representing three teams were still in the fight for the title and what a lineup they presented. Graham Hill for BRM, John Surtees for Ferrari and Jim Clark at Lotus were all in contention in one of the great deciders that, by its close, established a motor racing milestone that decades later remains unmatched.

The season had opened by defining what was expected to become the championship battle. Clark, the defending champion, and Lotus looking defiant if not quite as dominant as in 1963, fighting off the BRM of Hill and the Brabham of Dan Gurney. Clark had won three of the opening five races, while Hill and Gurney had won in Monaco and France. Surtees, however, had struggled as Ferrari had focused on its battle with Ford at Le Mans.

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• Piastri: ‘He’s come to the fight quicker than I expected’

• Verstappen feels ‘positive pressure’ in chasing leaders

Oscar Piastri has admitted that the late charge into a tense, three-way Formula One title fight by the defending champion, Max Verstappen, has taken him by surprise, a position echoed by the Dutchman.

The Australian also confirmed that he and his McLaren teammate, Lando Norris, go into this weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix with a “clean slate”, free to race one another as the pair battle with Verstappen.

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• Team caught out by CCTV cameras trackside

• Norris was lined up behind Max Verstappen

Red Bull have been fined £43,000 after a member of the team broke regulations in an act of gamesmanship at the US Grand Prix, when attempting to remove a piece of tape from the pit wall placed there by McLaren to aid their driver Lando Norris in lining up correctly on the grid.

The incident was an unusual example of low-level skulduggery between teams as Red Bull were caught out by CCTV cameras trackside and the race stewards issued the fine for events which took place just before the off.

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Champion could snatch drivers’ title away from the leading constructors just as Kimi Räikkönen did 18 years ago

A few short months ago Max Verstappen’s world championship defence appeared to be over. But when he took the flag in the US Grand Prix on Sunday it heralded the most remarkable resurgence as he waded with a gleeful swagger back into the title fight. Verstappen was down but he is far from out and could yet still pull off what would count as his greatest triumph.

Going into the weekend in Austin, Verstappen was still treating the idea of him being a contender against the two lead protagonists, McLaren’s Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, with a certain indifferent levity.

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• Australian’s lead in Formula One driver standings slashed to 14 points

• Max Verstappen back in contention after two victories at US Grand Prix

Oscar Piastri remains confident in his Formula One world championship chances after Lando Norris and Max Verstappen slashed the Australian driver’s lead at the United States Grand Prix.

Piastri endured a difficult weekend in Austin, colliding with McLaren teammate Norris in Saturday’s sprint as both were dumped out before managing only fifth in the GP race as Verstappen eased to victory.

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• World champion powers to US Grand Prix win in Austin

• Verstappen now 40 points behind leader Oscar Piastri

Max Verstappen is convinced that he is now very much in the fight for the world championship after his victory at the US Grand Prix. Following a dominant win in Austin the Red Bull driver was adamant he could still yet take his fifth title and was enthused at the chance to do so.

Verstappen won with a flawless drive from pole to flag at the Circuit of the Americas, and in so doing narrowed the gap to the championship leader Oscar Piastri to 40 points. In what is now a three-way title battle Lando Norris, who took second place, is just 14 points off Piastri.

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• Lando Norris overtakes Charles Leclerc to finish second

• Piastri manages fifth with rivals closing in on title lead

Dominant, untouchable and bearing a broad, beaming grin in the Texas sunshine, the transformation in Max Verstappen after he took victory at the US Grand Prix could not have been starker.

The disillusioned and dissatisfied driver who felt his title defence was long over has, against all the odds and indeed his own expectations, restaked his claim as a genuine contender in a deliciously tight Formula One world championship battle. Little wonder there were smiles, Verstappen knows he is back in the fight.

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• Lando Norris is second on grid, Oscar Piastri is sixth

• Max Verstappen won sprint after McLarens collided

Max Verstappen claimed pole position for the US Grand Prix with an immense lap for Red Bull at the Circuit of the Americas. However the day was marked by yet another incident between the two world championship contenders Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, with the latter crashing into Norris on the opening lap of the sprint race taking them both out and leaving McLaren with yet another headache as to how they manage their drivers.

Verstappen had been all but untouchable throughout qualifying, his lead over Norris in second place was a full three-tenths, an age at the Circuit of the Americas. However in what is an increasingly tense title fight Piastri’s difficult weekend continued as he managed only sixth on the grid. Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton took third and fifth for Ferrari, with Mercedes’ George Russell in fourth for Mercedes.

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• Tim Mayer hits out over rules surrounding election

• Mohammed Ben Sulayem will be the only candidate

The FIA has been accused of presenting an “illusion of democracy” in an uncompromising broadside from the last remaining challenger to Mohammed Ben Sulayem as he formally announced his attempt to succeed the organisation’s incumbent president was over. Tim Mayer, a former FIA senior steward, also condemned Formula One’s governing body for lacking transparency and threatening the sport’s future.

The 59-year-old American, who was sacked from his FIA role last year, had been standing as a candidate against Ben Sulayem but on Friday in Austin acknowledged the incumbent would run unopposed because of the way FIA electoral regulations are composed.

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