Saturday’s sprint race of the McLarens in the first two places of the world championship points race at the American Grand Prix lasted for a few hundred meters. Max Verstappen, who started in first place after the qualifying session, which brought several surprises, did well with Red Bull, but behind him, Lando Norris had his umpteenth poor start. From third place, his teammate Oscar Piastri tried to sneak behind him in the first hairpin at the end of the climb. In the tumult, however, Sauber’s Nico Hülkenberg Piastri, who ran a great qualifying time, was sandwiched between Friday’s surprise man, Fernando Alonso.
The line of dominoes started from the inside out with the Aston Martin, although Hülkenberg drifted into Piastri before he had pulled the front wing of his car on Alonso’s side and thoroughly threw the cross-cutting Australian, who then snapped at Norris. Piastri quickly ended the race with a broken right front suspension, his British teammate with a loose left rear tire, Alonso was also eliminated, and Hülkenberg, who drove through his own torn front wing, slid back. Although Zak Brown, McLaren’s team boss, complained to Sky Sports about the amateur driving of other drivers and, according to him, Hülkenberg would have had nothing to earn where he was, the judges did not punish anyone, practically treating the whole thing as a racing accident.
The laughers were George Russell and Carlos Sainz, who found themselves in second and third place, behind them the Ferraris, who had a weak weekend so far, and Júki Cunoda, who had a great start after the disastrous sprint qualifying, jumping from 18th place to seventh. Before that, Alex Albon made sure that in the Williams box they could count on points in addition to Sainz’s third place.
On the eighth lap, Russell surprised Verstappen with a daring attempt, but also himself, it seemed, as both cars left the track and returned in the same order.
“Dude, what was that?”
– asked Verstappen on his radio, not without reason, who quickly left Mercedes for sure. Behind them, the two Ferraris ensured the show: in vain Leclerc got in front of Hamilton in the confusion, in his great effort he drifted away in the fast right-lefts, the British driver thus caught up behind the Monaco driver and soon overtook him for 4th place.
Another crash on lap 16 ensured that the race ended as it had started. Lance Stroll, the only Aston Martin left standing, presented a seemingly hopeless kamikaze action against Esteban Ocon Haasa in the first corner, for which he even apologized on the fly. The judges also held Stroll fully responsible for the accident, which resulted in five correct start penalties and two penalty points.
Oliver Bearman added to the chaos: the Haas driver received a ten-second penalty for leaving the track. According to the judge’s verdict, he came back outside the line in front of Kimi Antonelli, while the Italian in the Mercedes was already legally in front of him and did not squeeze him on purpose. By now the safety car had already come in and only went back at the end of the last lap, so Antonelli, who was waved down behind Bearman on the track, inherited the last points-scoring place.
Verstappen was in the lead, followed by Russell, and then Sainz, who received a huge audience ovation on the podium, finished. The Spaniard was able to stand on the podium for the second time this season, ahead of the two Ferrari drivers who eliminated him last year. Albon and Cunoda held sixth and seventh place.
Thus, four of the top five teams in the overall team competition scored points with two drivers each, while the leading McLaren scored zero. Verstappen made the most of his disadvantage in the individual world championship compared to Piastri and Norris with the sprint race.
At McLaren, in addition – similarly to Aston Martin – the mechanics had a few hours left to repair both cars before the time trial of the regular race.
