Max Verstappen took a comfortable victory in the sprint race in Austin, whilst Norris only finished in third to lose ground in his hunt for the championship.
Verstappen was able to maintain the leading heading into turn 1 off the start, though Norris behind was able to get a great launch to bring himself up to second, hoping to immediately bring the fight to his championship rival.
The early laps saw a strong fight from the Ferrari drivers. Leclerc had tried to take third from Russell by divebombing him on lap 1, but the Mercedes driver was able to fight back. Then, Leclerc and Sainz began to scrap with one another, allowing the front runners to start pulling away.
Lap 5 saw a couple of key events. Firstly, Verstappen was able to break out of DRS range from Norris, and Sainz was able to overtake Leclerc after trying for some time.
Russell would begin to try and take back second place from Norris, though the McLaren driver was able to keep him at bay for the time being. Their fight allowed the two Ferrari drivers back into the mix, and Norris looked as though he could lose a handful of positions, though not before starting to gain on Verstappen who might have been working his tyres harder, though such gains were short lived.
Further back, and Piastri was given a 5 second penalty for forcing Pierre Gasly off track whilst trying to do some damage control after having had a poor sprint qualifying yesterday. Elsewhere on the lower end of the standings, and Fernando Alonso was not impressed with Liam Lawson’s racecraft, as F1’s newest full time driver was on the limit of aggressive defending.
George Russell appeared to have used up too much of his tyres when trying to overtake Norris, and became vulnerable to the Ferrari’s behind. Both Sainz and Leclerc would overtake him at turn 15 on subsequent laps.
Tsunoda and Perez had a close fight with one another on lap 13, with the RB driver doing his best to keep the Red Bull car behind him for as long as possible, though a lock up on the outside of turn 1 for Tsunoda would end this battle.
Tsunoda would then get into a scrap with Oscar Piastri. When the McLaren driver came to overtake him, he would do so in a way that Tsunoda felt he had to go off track to avoid a collision, and in doing so would stay ahead of Piastri. When asked to concede the position, he refused for a while before eventually relenting.
The Ferrari drivers were continuing to stick close to Norris, and on the last lap their pressure caused him to crack. Locking up into turn 1, Norris had Sainz cruise by on the inside, and whilst Leclerc was hoping to follow his teammate through, he was unable to do so, and would miss out on the podium places.
