US Grand Prix: Max Verstappen ‘getting in middle of McLaren’s fun’ with Zak Brown set for ‘brutal’ title climax
The crash and Verstappen’s subsequent sprint victory reduced the four-time champion’s point gap over Piastri to 55 points, while he is now 33 points behind Norris.
The Australian led Verstappen by 104 points after the Dutch race on August 31, meaning almost half of that advantage had been erased in three races and a sprint. There are still six races and two more sprints to go.
Under normal circumstances, it seems inevitable that Piastri will lose further ground to Verstappen in Texas on Sunday. Norris has a chance to take the lead, but as he points out, McLaren never looked like the car to beat Verstappen this weekend.
“It’s going to be tough,” Norris said. “We were hoping to learn a lot in the sprint about how the car set-up would be and fine-tune from qualifying to the race, but that didn’t go to plan so we’re definitely on the back foot. But we won’t make that an excuse for tomorrow.”
“It’s clear we can’t be as fast as Red Bull, so we have to be happy with second place. It’s not like we’re not distracted by the chaos and nonsense that everyone is creating.”
“Saturdays have never been this good this year, so hopefully we can pick things up tomorrow and be a little quicker.
“I have to be optimistic. Every lap we did today was 0.3-0.5 seconds behind Max, so it will be quite difficult to turn that around. I’m sure if Max had done his last lap he would still have gone a good step faster.”
“They’ve been fast in a lot of races lately. They’re doing a very good job and they seem to be catching us a little bit. It’s not a lot, it’s just that they’re ahead more consistently. And then you can get more opportunities and of course Max is good at making the most of them.”
Meanwhile, Stella admitted that McLaren is becoming more aware of how strong Verstappen can be for the rest of the season.
“I would expect there to be a smaller difference here, so we have to look at the facts and figures,” he said. “Just objectively, we don’t need to maximize the performance that’s available in the car today.
“But as a team and as drivers we need to be ready for Max and Red Bull to be competitive and possibly the fastest car in each of the remaining races.”
