For all the attention on world championship rivals Max Verstappen and Lando Norris, who delivered a cracking and controversial fight at the finish, a fascinating late-season variable was thrown into the mix with a dominant win for Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc at the US Grand Prix. The Scuderia now appear poised to play a part in the title fight, a cracking ratcheting up of the tension as the season enters its final run-in.
Leclerc took a one-two with teammate Carlos Sainz comfortably beat both Verstappen and Norris. With Verstappen in third and Norris in fourth after a conclusion decided by the stewards having gone wheel to wheel for the final ten laps. Norris had passed for the place but given a five-second penalty for doing so by going off track, was relegated to fourth, the British driver aggrieved at his team they had not told him to give back the place and avoid the punishment. Their fight was a gripping affair but on track the two title protagonists played second fiddle to a resurgent Ferrari who were on fire in Texas. Norris who had lost the lead at the very start of the race but came back strongly to take the fight to Verstappen, who has extended his lead now to 57 points. A net five-point loss over the weekend, far from what the British driver needs but the pace he showed at the close as the Dutchman struggled will give him some optimism for the final five meetings.
The pair’s fight was immense. When both opted to one-stop, Norris had gone longer and came at the Dutchman on fresher tyres in the final third furiously hounding him. The pair vied across fro corner after corner but Verstappen held his nerve and defended with no little vim as the British driver looked for every angle in what was and absolutely riveting fight.
On lap 52 Norris finally found his way past but going off track to do so. Verstappen was aggrieved he had done so and Norris felt he already had the place. Both drivers convinced they were in the right but the stewards found against Norris, The day had comprehensively belonged to Ferrari however, the Scuderia’s first in Austin since Kimi Raikkonen took the flag in 2018 was indicative of the fact that they have turned their car around and in Texas at least bettered both Red Bull and McLaren. On this form Leclerc will be playing a part in the drivers’ championship, while Ferrari will be buoyed in their belief that they still have a shot at taking the constructors’ title Leclerc had taken the lead at the start and did not relinquish it after Norris lost the spot from pole despite a good start as Verstappen dived up the inside and pushed him wide through turn one, allowing Leclerc to shoot though and pass both to hit the front from fourth on the grid.
For Ferrari, after their season had gone off the boil when the upgrades they brought to the Spanish GP proved to be more detrimental than positive, a further swathe of developments were brought to Monza to address the issues and they finally appear to have paid off. They did not, as with other teams, bring developments to the US instead using the race, a traditional mix of high and medium-speed corners, to ascertain if their current package was really working and on this form the Scuderia finally have turned a corner.
It closed honours even overall on pace between the two title leaders but it was Verstappen who came out of the weekend on top given he increased his lead.
Five meetings remain, including two sprint races and going into the weekend Norris needed to outscore his rival by just under nine points per meeting and while he did not manage that and the task facing the British driver remains challenging, he does at least remain in the fight.
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Norris and McLaren would have hoped for more, given the pace their car has shown in the second half of the season and with some upgrades brought to Austin. The developments they deployed do not appear to have hampered the car, as has been the case with other teams including Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari this season, but equally they have not made a step forward, a blow to Norris’s title hopes.