Verstappen extends title lead after twice clashing with title rival Norris

Max Verstappen twice ran championship rival Lando Norris off the circuit but survived to extend his lead in the standings at the USGP.

The Dutchman, after winning Saturday’s sprint race, dived up the inside at the start in a bid to take the lead from the McLaren driver, but the pair ran wide, allowing Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to take control.

Falling out of touch of the Monegasque, Verstappen then dropped behind Carlos Sainz in the sister Ferrari to run third. Norris in fourth closed the gap to his rival, but made a bold move around the outside of Turn 12 in the closing stages. Verstappen, defending the inside, ran deep and forced Norris off the circuit for a second time. The McLaren man though passed the Red Bull off the track, and was handed a five second penalty, which allowed for Verstappen to cross the line fourth, but stand on the podium in third.

Speaking afterwards, Norris said the penalty was a harsh one given Verstappen gave him no option but to leave the circuit. He said: "For me, the thing that is incorrect is what Max did, which is defend his position by going off the track and effectively keeping his position. He over-defended and made a mistake and gained from that.

"I had to go off the track. It is impossible for people to know whether I could have made it on the track or couldn't, therefore you cannot steward that kind of thing."

Verstappen though defended his moves. He said: “The battle with Lando at the end was cool as we were racing hard and it was actually a lot of fun. You cannot overtake outside the white line and I have lost a podium here before overtaking outside the track, so that is unfortunate but it is the rules.”

After looking the third quickest car on track on Sunday, Verstappen continued: “We need to analyse a bit more why we didn’t have the same pace as we did expect to be more competitive, which is a shame.

“However, this weekend we have made some positive steps and have had flashes where it looked like we were coming back to the front, so we are going in the right direction. It is still not enough but we will keep working and improving the car where we can.”

Heading into the Mexican Grand Prix next weekend, Verstappen opened his championship lead from 52 to 57 with five races to go.

Sergio Perez in the sister Red Bull meanwhile came home seventh after recovering from ninth on the grid in qualifying. stuck behind Yuki Tsunoda’s RB for much of the opening stint of the race, Perez was running sixth until a fast-charging George Russell took him at the end.

He said: “I lost quite a bit of time getting stuck behind the midfield pack at the beginning and the people who were on the hard seemed to have the best strategy, therefore I lost position to George in the end.

“We lacked pace the whole weekend; it has not been a straightforward weekend and we have plenty of work to do.”