United States GP
The United States GP in Austin saw another tricky weekend for McLaren made even more difficult by a spectacular one for Max Verstappen, as the Dutchman’s relentless outside bet charge for the World Championship continued.
And there was a twist in the tale as a cheeky bit of gamesmanship by Red Bull Racing intended to rile its rival earned the Milton Keynes team a hefty fine after the race.
Verstappen began the weekend by taking pole for the Saturday sprint, and converting it to a victory. Behind him both Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris were eliminated on the first lap after a collision that also involved Nico Hulkenberg and Fernando Alonso, and which ensured that Verstappen earned eight points his rivals didn’t score any.
The double incident also compromised McLaren’s preparations for main qualifying, where Verstappen took another pole as Norris and Piastri had to settle for second and sixth on the grid. Come the race Verstappen scored another dominant win ahead of Norris, while Piastri couldn’t better fifth place.
Verstappen took another 17 points out of Piastri’s lead, leaving the Australian’s advantage at just 40 just a few weeks after it stood at 100-plus. With five GPs and two sprints remaining on the calendar another 141 points are still up for grabs, and given Verstappen’s brilliant form, it’s starting to look pretty ominous for McLaren as the pressure builds. Verstappen’s “nothing to lose” approach and team boss Laurent Mekies insisting that Red Bull is taking it a weekend at a time has paid off spectacularly in recent weeks.
And the twist? Before the race a Red Bull team member headed back onto the grid to remove a piece of tape from the pitwall that McLaren routinely uses to help Norris park his car on the grid in the correct place. Hoping to make the McLaren driver’s life harder, the mechanic had stepped onto the grid too late – against the objections of an official. It was the latter that earned the team a €50,000 fine post-race. The cheeky incident somehow summed up the way Red Bull has got under McLaren’s skin of late.
On the plus side for the Woking team the main race was at least a good one for Norris, who lost out to a charging Charles Leclerc at the start but drove a measured race, saving his tyres before reclaiming second. In so doing he cut the margin to Piastri by seven points, and he seems to have the momentum at McLaren at the moment. The Aussie has to get his campaign back on track in Mexico City next weekend.
Behind the battle for the championship there were some positives to be drawn from the weekend for the other two top teams. Ferrari ran a smart strategy with Leclerc, starting him in the main race on the soft tyres and then switching to the mediums. That gave him some extra pace at the start and allowed to him to run ahead of Norris for much of the race. While he eventually lost out, third place was a decent reward. Lewis Hamilton backed him up in fourth after a solid weekend for the former champion, who continues to feel more comfortable with the SF-25 and beat Leclerc in the sprint.
Mercedes could take heart from George Russell running a close second to Verstappen in the sprint, backing up the pace he showed last time out in Singapore. However, a bad start in the GP saw him drop from P4 on the grid to P6, and he remained there for the duration, unable to use his potential speed. His team mate Kimi Antonelli had a difficult first weekend in Austin, finishing eighth in the sprint and a lowly 13th in the GP after being punted into a spin by Carlos Sainz.
The incident caused the Spaniard to retire, and with team mate Alex Albon out of the top 10 after his strategy didn’t work out it was a bad Sunday for Williams. However the previous day the pair logged useful points in the sprint in third and sixth places respectively. Alas Sainz’s Mexico City weekend will be compromised by a five-place grid penalty that he picked up.
Of the rest the team with the most to cheer about was Sauber. Nico Hulkenberg qualified a shock fourth for the sprint, giving the Swiss outfit its best position in several years, but he then lost out in the first corner melee. However Hulkenberg made up for that with a good run to eighth and best of the rest in Sunday’s race. The German comprehensively beat team mate Gabriel Bortoleto, who struggled to come to terms with the track.
At Haas it was the opposite case as rookie Oliver Bearman outperformed his experienced team mate Esteban Ocon, with an upgrade package helping the Brit to finish P9 in the main race and log two useful points in the team’s home race, despite a spin when wrongfooted by Yuki Tsunoda. That made up for a penalty he received in the sprint.
The only other team to score over the weekend was Aston Martin, with Fernando Alonso logging P10 on Sunday. However overall it was a disappointing US event for the team, with both Alonso and team mate Lance Stroll eliminated in the sprint.
Racing Bulls had a below par weekend with neither Liam Lawson nor Isack Hadjar scoring, and the latter suffering a huge crash at the start of main qualifying. Nevertheless the Frenchman remains favourite to be names soon as replacement for Tsunoda at Red Bull in 2026. The Japanese driver came away from Austin with a pair of seventh places, but the 52-second gap to winner Verstappen in the main event was telling.
With an eye on 2026 Alpine continues to count down increasingly painful race weekends with an uncompetitive car, and both Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto were far from the points. Nevertheless the team stumbled into an internal row when the latter disobeyed an instruction to hold station in the closing laps, and instead ducked past his team mate. It remains to be seen what impact that might have on his long term future at the team.
Off track the big news of the weekend had a local flavour. Firstly streaming giant Apple TV was name as F1’s US TV partner for 2026, and then the US GP was confirmed as staying in Austin until 2034. Both announcements confirmed how Liberty Media’s focus on the USA is paying off.
