Category: Formula 1

• Norris penalised for passing title rival off track at US GP
• Verstappen extended championship lead to 57 points

Max Verstappen has hit back at McLaren’s criticism of his defensive tactics in Sunday’s US Grand Prix by accusing the British team of “complaining a lot lately”.

Verstappen extended his title lead over Lando Norris to 57 points after the McLaren man was demoted to fourth – one place behind Verstappen – following a five-second penalty for passing his championship rival off the track in the closing stages.

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• Briton’s overtaking of Verstappen punished
• Norris dropped from third to fourth as a result

Lando Norris and the McLaren team principal, Andrea Stella, have condemned the FIA stewards, claiming they incorrectly interfered in the US Grand Prix, costing Norris third place and vital points in his world championship battle with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who took the place after Norris was given a penalty.

The two drivers had engaged in a gripping fight for the final ten laps of the race , which was won by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Norris and Verstappen had vied with one another with great skill when Norris went round the outside of turn 12 to pass but in so doing both drivers went off track. Norris was then given a five-second penalty by the stewards for making the overtake off track, and their positions in third and fourth were reversed after they had crossed the line.

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• Verstappen third, Norris fourth behind Ferrari duo
• Norris drops place after taking five-second penalty

That there is a real title fight on the cards still to come this season was illustrated in the finest fashion of the kind Formula One deserves with a gripping, dramatic and controversial wheel to wheel contest between the two protagonists Max Verstappen and Lando Norris at the US Grand Prix. But pity then poor Charles Leclerc, whose dominant victory in Austin and Ferrari’s resurgence with a one-two alongside Carlos Sainz was all but overshadowed in the Texas sunshine.

The season, a two-horse fight between Red Bull’s Verstappen and McLaren’s Norris, has long demanded a full-on head to head between the pair and they finally delivered with a humdinger, albeit not for the lead. After vying for over 10 laps at the close, with nothing to choose between them, Norris had finally passed Verstappen for third place on track when the flag fell with Verstappen in fourth.

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The Ferrari driver stole in at the start to take the spoils, as Max Verstappen and Lando Norris tangled in a late battle

Max Verstappen: “Yesterday was an indication it’s been a bit better already. The sprint should replicate to the main race. Winning would make life a lot easier. That’s always been the aim.”

AC/DC’s Thunderstruck is playing too loud for the telecasters. Great record.

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• Ferrari’s Sainz and Leclerc in second and fourth
• Verstappen extends lead in title race to 54 points

First blood then 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 win in sprint race at the US Grand Prix.

In what was an impressively dominant victory at the Circuit of the Americas, beating his title rival Lando Norris into third, he has extended his championship lead and crucially demonstrated the Red Bull is once more on fine form. Norris, having lost second place to Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz on the final lap, failed to take vital points off Verstappen but remained optimistic for Sunday’s race.

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Tensions are rising over technical regulations in the build-up to the US Grand Prix with rivals desperate to gain an edge

Fans can be forgiven for switching off when Formula One descends into one of its arcane rows over technical regulations, as happened in the build-up to this weekend’s US Grand Prix, with accusation and counter-accusation over the innocuous sounding element known as the “bib” or, with even more innocence, the “tea tray”.

Yet these forays into sniping over the rules, much as they do not stir the sporting soul, do matter. Especially in a tightly contested championship battle as this season has now become. The tiniest margin might make a difference and the two teams locked in battle, McLaren and Red Bull, know it. Bibtray-gate illustrates how the title protagonists are leveraging anything they can for an advantage, while Red Bull’s Christian Horner and McLaren’s Zak Brown, are rekindling what is already a rather healthy antagonism.

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• Marko had said Norris is ‘not the strongest mentally’
• Max Verstappen qualifies on pole for sprint race in Austin

McLaren chief Zak Brown said the claim from Red Bull’s Helmut Marko that Lando Norris is not mentally strong enough to dethrone Max Verstappen was “inappropriate” and in “poor taste”.

Speaking ahead of this weekend’s US Grand Prix, Red Bull motorsport adviser Marko said Norris is “not the strongest mentally”.

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The variables between Red Bull and McLaren suggest much drama to come as title chase could still go down to the wire

After a season that opened looking like it would deliver an all too familiar march to the title for Max Verstappen when the Dutchman won seven of the first 10 races, the 2024 world championship battle has been turned on its head. It is now set for a gripping run-in over the final six meetings, beginning this weekend in Austin, with several major factors that could shape the championship.

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• Device believed to be used to alter ride height of car
• Norris 52 points behind Verstappen in drivers’ standings

Lando Norris has welcomed the FIA clamping down on a potentially illegal device on his world championship rival Max Verstappen’s Red Bull after the governing body deemed it could be used against the regulations to improve performance.

The McLaren driver was speaking before this weekend’s US Grand Prix as he prepares to go into a decisive showdown with Verstappen for the title over the remaining six races. Norris is 52 points behind with 180 still available across the next six meetings.

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• Race promoter feared ‘weakest year since pandemic’
• Eminem gig scheduled for Saturday of race weekend

Ticket sales for this month’s US Formula One Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, “took off” after Max Verstappen stopped winning, according to the race promoter, Bobby Epstein. Verstappen started the season in dominant fashion, winning four of the first five races and seemingly destined to wrap up his fourth drivers’ title well before the end of the campaign.

The Dutchman, who won 19 of 22 races last year, has failed to win any of the last eight, however, with McLaren’s Lando Norris his closest challenger and now 52 points behind with six rounds remaining.

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