Lando Norris and McLaren came into the USGP with huge momentum having outscored Red Bull by 129 points since the British Grand Prix. The MCL38 had evolved from just excelling at circuits with predominantly high speed corners to a genuine all rounder as demonstrated by Oscar Piastri at the stop start track in Hungary.

The constructors’ championship appeared already lost to Red Bull with McLaren now some 41 points ahead of the world champions coming into the race weekend in Austin, Texas.

As if to make matters worse, McLaren’s CEO came out all guns blazing in the southern US state, accusing Red Bull of deploying a secret ride height adjuster which could escape the attention of the FIA when the cars were in parc ferme.

 

 

 

FIA shut down Zak Brown’s charge of cheating

This of course would be cheating at the highest level but Brown’s accusations rang somewhat hollow, given the component is one labelled as an “open source” item.

“Certain components of the car are what we call OSC components, which are components that the teams need to upload on a portal which is available with the FIA and all the other teams,” The FIA’s head of day to day activities, Nikolas Tombazis, told assembled media in Austin. “That is for some components which we consider not areas of competition, but we don’t want to standardise and prescribe.”

It transpired Red Bull’s open source bib adjuster has been available for all to see for at least two seasons now. Despite repeated efforts from Tombazis to put the matter to bed, Brown insisted the FIA perform a “lookback” to ascertain whether Red Bull have ever used their adjuster in breach of parc ferme rules.

However, Tombazis is adamant Brown’s “lookback” is both unnecessary and unrealistic. “People are allowed to check things on the car and it’s a matter of how easy [it is to do]. If you have to dismount a whole bodywork and do 50 things then obviously it would be visible on the camera, but something as simple and as quick as that I don’t think you can realistically check that on camera and images.”

Verstappen mind games with Zak Brown

 

 

 

McLaren’s dominant run ends

Unbowed, Brown’s parting comments on the topic was that Red Bull senior management should sign affidavits confirming the adjuster has never been used in parc ferme conditions. “I’d like to see the senior leadership, the former chief mechanics and the current mechanics sign an affidavit stating that they have never used or have no knowledge of it being used,” the McLaren CEO told the Daily Mail.

Brown’s persistent grumbling was meant to be accompanied by another crushing on track performance from his drivers over Red Bull. Yet the F1 mood music changed in Austin and it was Ferrari who were Red Bull’s chief rivals this weekend.

Carlos Sainz was on a lap looking good for pole when George Russell crashed out in qualifying meaning the Scuderia pair started from the second row on the grid. By turn two Leclerc had taken advantage of Verstappen and Norris battling it out into turn one taking the lead of the race he would never relinquish.

Once Carlos Sainz had cleared Verstappen and the Ferrari’s were running 1-2 it seemed the top four order would remain to the chequered flag. Then with ten laps remaining in the Grand Prix, Norris began a charge to close down Verstappen and take the remaining podium position for McLaren.

Hamilton explains F1 shock exit

 

 

 

Norris penalty halved

On lap 52 Norris made another move on his rival, but as happened in turn one, Verstappen ran Lando wide and the Brit completed the overtake outside of track limits. Crucially Max also left the track at the same time which was to prove decisive.

Whilst the move looked similar to lap one, turn one where Max ran Norris wide but the crucial difference was that this time it was Norris who made the overtake and while completely off the circuit.

The inevitable penalty came for Norris, but to the surprise of a number of commentators. The stewards issued a five second penalty not the usual ten seconds, something they explained sometime after the chequered flag.

“A five-second penalty is imposed instead of the 10-second penalty recommended in the guidelines because having committed to the overtaking move on the outside the driver of Car 4 had little alternative other than to leave the track because of the proximity of Car 1 which had also left the track.

“In view of the above, we determine that this will not count as a track limit “strike” for Car 4.”

Zak Brown put back in his box by FIA official

 

 

 

Mexico a favourite of Verstappen

Lando had collected three strikes already for track limits transgressions during the race and had this been counted too, the McLaren driver would have been issued with the black and white flag.

Further, had the standard ten seconds been applied by the stewards, Norris would have been classified behind his team mate, Oscar Piastri. As it was Lando was in effect just forced to give the position back to Max, although Norris had almost made up the five seconds he needed to retain third place.

Both Norris and McLaren are further behind Verstappen and Red bull than when they started the weekend in Austin, next up is Mexico a circuit which traditionally favours Red Bull. Max has won five of the last six races held in the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez and the world champion will be looking for another this weekend to help close out his fourth consecutive F1 title.

Surprise F1 speed trap times in COTA

 

 

 

 

F1 team boss accuses FIA stewards of bias

Mercedes mostly had a weekend to forget at the USGP despite having topped the time sheets in Friday practice and George Russell coming within a whisker of Sprint pole. During the shortened version of the Grand Prix, Russell fell through the order on fading tyres while Hamilton improved on his P7 start to finish the Sprint in 6th behind his team mate.

Grand Prix qualifying was to go even worse for Mercedes as Lewis Hamilton failed to make it out of Q1. Russell was sixth going into the final runs in Q3 when he inexplicably sent his W15 into the crash barrier at turn 19. The session was red flagged with barely minutes to go but the rebuild of George’s car meant his engineers worked through the night in breach of the curfew which saw Russell penalised and starting the GP from the pit lane.

Having never started outside the top five at COTA, Hamilton had moved up to start seventeenth following other penalties issued. But just one lap into the race he suffered a similar fate to his team mate the day previously, at the same corner too and Lewis’ race came to a swift end… READ MORE