Staff Reporter.
(SkySports) – Max Verstappen’s late-season title charge has gathered further pace as he won the Sprint at the United States Grand Prix after McLaren team-mates Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris collided amid chaotic scenes at the first corner.
As Verstappen led comfortably away from pole, Piastri challenged Norris for second place on the uphill run to the wide, first turn.
With Norris holding the preferred inside line, Piastri yielded as they entered the braking zone but then as he cut back underneath the sister car to try and attack on the corner exit, disaster struck when the Australian collided with Nico Hulkenberg’s Sauber on his inside.
The side-on collision pitched Piastri’s car up onto two wheels and sent him straight into the luckless Norris, causing Sprint-ending damage to both cars. Hulkenberg and Aston Martin Fernando Alonso, pinched on the inside as the Sauber attempted to avoid Piastri, also retired with damage,
The collision comes two weeks after the McLaren title rivals made contact on the first lap of the Singapore Grand Prix, when Norris went into Piastri’s front wheel after the Briton had tagged Verstappen ahead of him.
Although papaya both cars continued then, and neither the team nor the stewards took any in-race action, Norris subsequently revealed on Thursday in Austin that the team had imposed unspecified ‘repercussions’ on him after ultimately finding him at fault in their post-race review.
With his two drivers ahead of him in the championship wiped out immediately, Verstappen survived a fierce initial challenge from Mercedes’ George Russell after a lap-one Safety Car – a battle which at one point saw both drivers run off track as the Briton lunged for the lead and locked up – to win the Sprint for the third consecutive year in Austin.
Verstappen therefore took the full eight points for the victory out of Piastri’s championship lead, meaning the reigning four-time champion is now 55 points back on the championship summit having been a mammoth 104 behind just four races ago.