McLaren's 'brutal' reality of 'that Max guy getting in middle of our fun'

Max Verstappen trails Lando Norris by 33 points in the drivers' championship, and is 55 points behind leader Oscar Piastri

On Saturday morning at the United States Grand Prix, McLaren Formula 1 boss Zak Brown said he expected the climax to the world championship fight this year to be "brutal".

Brown's words were proved right within a couple of hours of being uttered in a manner the American has said many times he expected to happen this year but was certainly not envisaging when he said them.

His drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris crashed out together at the first corner of the sprint in Austin, and Red Bull's Max Verstappen cruised to a comfortable win.

That gained Verstappen eight points on both McLaren drivers, and the four-time world champion champion later rubbed salt into his rivals' wounds with an imperious pole position for the grand prix.

Norris will line up alongside Verstappen on the front row. The gap was a chunky 0.291 seconds, all the more concerning for McLaren as Verstappen did not get in a second run because traffic on his out lap meant he did not get to the line before the session ended.

Piastri, struggling in Austin this weekend, qualified sixth, a further 0.283secs adrift.

Verstappen has won two of the past three races, and finished second in the other, won by Mercedes' George Russell in Singapore two weeks ago.

McLaren clinched their second consecutive constructors' championship in Singapore with six races still to go, but their superlative form of earlier in the season has taken a dip. A McLaren driver has not finished ahead of Verstappen since the Dutch Grand Prix at the end of August, four races ago.

McLaren have never deviated from their belief that Verstappen was still in the title battle, even as he won only two of the first 15 races of the season.

At the time, it felt like the sort of thing F1 teams say to ensure they keep their collective focus, not reflective of the competitive situation. All of a sudden, it is beginning to feel very real.

"This Max guy," Brown said in an interview with BBC Sport, "he's relentless.

"So I'm more focused on making sure he doesn't get himself any more in the game than he already is, because our goal is to finish one-two in the drivers' championship, give our guys equal opportunity to decide who's first, who's second. What we really don't want is that Max guy getting in the middle of our fun."

But that is exactly what Verstappen is doing.

Piastri-Norris crash dominates sprint Saturday

McLaren team-mates Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris have now collided in consecutive F1 races

The crash between the McLaren drivers dominated events on Saturday at the Circuit of the Americas.

The world champions responded calmly to it, as they have to every difficult moment this year, including the collision between them on the first lap in Singapore.

Brown and the McLaren team principal Andrea Stella pointed the finger at the two drivers who were on the inside of Piastri at the first corner, Sauber's Nico Hulkenberg and Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso.

Interestingly, Norris did the same, insisting Piastri "got hit".

Piastri said: "For me, it's a racing incident. I was a long way away from the apex, and the cars behind were going in pretty deep to the corner.

"So could I have done something a bit different? Maybe yes, but that different thing would have been to potentially let two or three cars go by.

"We can't just drive around the outside of the track and let everyone use up all the space."

Most agreed with him that it was a racing incident, the sort of thing that can happen at this first corner, with its wide, uphill entry which inevitably leads to a concertina effect mid-turn.

But that view can be held at the same time as differing with McLaren and Piastri's position.

Some observers - including the 1996 world champion Damon Hill, commentating for BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra - felt Piastri was dicing with danger in cutting back so aggressively to try to pass Norris on the exit.

It was a move that would have created no difficulty had it been in the middle of a grand prix. But Hill said that his golden rule at the first corner used to be to make no sudden movements, and many experienced racing drivers would agree.

McLaren argued that Piastri was some way wide of the exit, that he had left plenty of room for Hulkenberg. But the German had Alonso on his inside and little room for manoeuvre.

So Piastri's sharp cut-back led to his left-rear wheel colliding with Hulkenberg's right front, and catapulting the Australian into the air and then into his team-mate.

After qualifying, Norris was asked whether McLaren had reviewed it, and what he thought of it now.

"It will be reviewed," he said. "Probably takes a bit more time to understand everything, before qualifying and race is not the best time.

"Things will be reviewed to understand a few more things apart from that. Nothing I can do. I just have to crack on and do my own thing.

"It was a difficult time but I said what I said and I won't add any more."

Stella said the team had had "a couple of chats with Lando and Oscar but fundamentally they were about resetting", emphasising that focusing on qualifying was important.

"We will review it at the right time, we will do that collaboratively, and we all make the right assessment.

"What I said straight after the sprint was that a bit more prudence from drivers that come with a lot of experience, especially when they are in a good position, would have been helpful, and I can confirm that this is still my opinion."

'McLaren does not look like a Verstappen-beating car'

The crash and Verstappen's subsequent sprint win cut the four-time champion's deficit to Piastri to 55 points, while he is now 33 behind Norris.

The Australian led Verstappen by 104 points after the Dutch race on 31 August, so nearly half that advantage has been eroded in three grands prix and a sprint. There are still six races and two further sprints to come.

In the normal run of things, it seems inevitable that Piastri will lose more ground to Verstappen on Sunday in Texas. Norris has a chance to get ahead, but as he pointed out, the McLaren has not looked like a Verstappen-beating car at any point this weekend.

"It's going to be difficult," Norris said. "We were hoping to learn a lot in the sprint in terms of how the car set-up would be from qualifying to race and hopefully make tweaks but that didn't go to plan so we are certainly on the back foot. But we won't make it an excuse for tomorrow.

"It's clear we were not going to be as quick as the Red Bull so we have to be happy with second. It's not being distracted by the mess and nonsense that everyone creates.

"Saturdays have never been as good this year so I'm hoping we can turn it up tomorrow and be a little bit quicker.

"I have to be optimistic. Every lap we did today was 0.3-0.5secs off Max so to turn that around will be pretty difficult. I'm sure if Max had done his final lap he would have gone a good step quicker anyway.

"They have been quick in a lot of races recently. They have been doing a very good job and seemed to catch us up a little bit. It's not a lot, just enough that they are more consistently ahead. And then you can get more opportunities and of course Max is good at making the most of them."

Meanwhile, Stella admitted that McLaren were even more aware of just how potent Verstappen can be for the remainder of the season.

"I would have expected a smaller gap here, if anything, so we have to look at the facts, we have to look at the numbers," he said. "Just objectively, not necessarily we maximised what the performance was available today in the car.

"But we need to be ready as a team and as drivers for Max and Red Bull being competitive and possibly the fastest car at every one of the remaining races."