A difficult race in the United States
The Austin weekend is certainly not one Lando Norris will want to remember: between the Sprint and the United States Grand Prix, the Englishman lost another five points in his direct battle with Max Verstappen, ‘wasting’ yet another pole position and now having to closely watch out for Charles Leclerc’s comeback. The Monegasque is currently third in the standings, only 22 points behind Lando Norris, who has 57 points to recover from Max Verstappen ahead of the Mexico City Grand Prix, which is scheduled to take place this weekend.
The incident that ultimately cost Lando Norris the podium was his late-race duel with Max Verstappen, where he was penalized five seconds for overtaking outside track limits. But even at the start, the Bristol native’s race took a turn for the worse, again due to a tough battle with his friend and rival at Turn 1. Taking advantage of a gap that Lando Norris had carelessly left open, Max Verstappen dived inside and forced the McLaren driver wide, dropping him from first to fourth.
Protests on the team radio
Lando Norris immediately expressed his anger over the radio, venting to his pit wall and calling for a penalty for the three-time world champion. During the Safety Car period, which came out after two laps due to Lewis Hamilton’s off into the gravel, Lando Norris fumed over the radio: “He clearly pushed me wide, he had no intention of making the corner, he even went off track. I could only run into him, or he into me.”
Shortly after, Lando Norris doubled down: “The point is, he overtook me so hard that he went off track, like in Budapest—it’s the same thing.” This referred to the Hungarian GP, where Max Verstappen briefly took second place at the start behind Oscar Piastri and ahead of Lando Norris, going extremely wide at Turn 1 onto the asphalt run-off. In that case, the Dutchman was told by his team to give the position back. This time, however, the ‘stewards’ sided with the world champion.
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