Oscar Piastri can still win the F1 drivers’ championship, but Verstappen is now stalking the McLarens

The brave Norris, who fought fiercely with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in half of the race, came in second, while Piastri had to settle for fifth.

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It was a nightmare weekend for the McLaren drivers, who suffered a double DNF in Saturday’s sprint race. Piastri’s steering wheel collided with Nico Hulkenberg’s Sauber and the accidental contact caused the Australian driver to crash into his teammate.

The incident occurred weeks after Norris After hitting the back of Verstappen’s car, he nudged Piastri towards the trackside wall. Singapore warns McLaren could have “repercussions”

McLaren CEO Zak Brown said the crash in the sprint race was “a brutal day at the office” and admitted the team would review everything that happened.

Verstappen won the sprint race for the third consecutive year, adding to his growing list of victories in the second half of the season, including the Italian and Azerbaijani Grands Prix.

Piastri continues to lead the championship race by 14 points ahead of Norris. However, Verstappen is only 40 points clear of Piastri and 26 points behind Norris; this is almost equivalent to a single race win (25 points).

It has been more than seven weeks since a McLaren driver won a grand prix, and in the last five rounds Verstappen (119) has accumulated the same points total as any McLaren driver (Piastri 62, Norris 57).

Verstappen is a viable candidate to win the title and he knows it.

The Red Bull star smiled as Sky Sports commentator Martin Brundle described his race as a “championship race”.

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“It was an incredible weekend for us… I knew the race wasn’t going to be easy,” he said.

“You must be thinking, ‘I can do this, there’s a chance,'” Brundle told him.

“Yes there is definitely a chance,” Verstappen replied.

“We need to deliver on weekends like this.”

Verstappen, who is known to have a sometimes tense relationship with the media, has been reserved and indifferent all year about his chances of winning the title, shrugging off previous questions from journalists about defending his title.

The press conference in Texas marked a visible shift in attitude: a revitalized Red Bull under new team boss Laurent Mekies could challenge for the drivers’ championship and, more importantly, potentially push McLaren to select a driver on whom it can focus all its attention.

Former Formula 1 team boss Günther Steiner recently spoke at the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Center saying McLaren may be “overthinking” things and will need to make a decision soon.

“The danger here is that Max could step up. To get a McLaren driver to win at some stage, which I think is very soon, they have to make the decision to support the driver in front, which is obviously Oscar,” he said.

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Piastri has not won a race since the Dutch Grand Prix on 31 August and has failed to finish on the podium in the last three races.

But the Australian said it was still “very close” to pick the No. 1 driver.

“I don’t know… I don’t think so,” he said, shifting uncomfortably when asked in an interview.

“We’re still incredibly tight and we’ve both said we want an opportunity to challenge for the championship because we deserve it, so I think it’s too close to start choosing one over the other.”

The next race is less than a week away in Mexico City, where Verstappen has claimed five career victories at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. If Verstappen wins again, Piastri’s perception that he is “too close” could change.

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