Fury masks true blunder in penalty furore; young gun’s vindication: F1 Talking Pts

In the expansive Texas sky, the sun is slowly setting on Lando Norris’s drivers championship hopes.

His target was already as large as the novelty-size United States flag lording over the Circuit of the Americas. A perfect season on its own wouldn’t have been enough; he needed mistakes or misfortune to hinder Max Verstappen’s ability to score.

Instead he leaves Austin beaten by the Dutchman in the sprint and the grand prix, suffering a five-point blow that will surely prove terminal.

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With 57 points now between them, Norris would need to outscore Verstappen by a deeply improbable 11.4 points per weekend over the last five rounds to overcome the deficit.

But the psychological blow will be more significant that the points damage.

Verstappen wasn’t simply faster than Norris; he was better too.

He was better off the line. He was better in attack. He was better in defence. He was better at interpreting the rules of combat.

The McLaren was the faster car in the race, but the Red Bull Racing driver finished ahead.

For the reigning constructors champion, this was balance restored after a troubled run of races after the mid-season break. Its upgrades this weekend have returned it to competitiveness, even if that no longer means domination given the quality at the front of the field.

For McLaren, however, it was a podium twice robbed in a deepening of the ill feeling between the two teams increasingly motivated not to pull their punches.

MCLAREN SLAMS ‘INTERFERENCE’ IN PODIUM FIGHT

McLaren and Red Bull Racing started the week engaged in a war or words over the technical regulations and ended it fighting over the sporting rules.

With Norris and Verstappen sharing the front row, it was always going to end in tears.

The battle reached its crescendo on lap 52 of 56. Norris had been besieging Verstappen for a place on the podium for almost 10 laps when he finally managed to draw alongside him down the back straight.

He lined up a move around the outside, but both cars ran wide off the track. The Briton kept his foot in and took the position, sprinting away into the distance with his fresher tyres.

The stewards took a dim view of the off-track pass, however, and slapped him with a post-race penalty that dropped him back to fourth.

It was a controversial call, to say the least.

“My view is that the way the stewards interfered with a beautiful piece of motorsport was inappropriate because both cars went off track, so both cars gained an advantage,” McLaren principal Andrea Stella told Sky Sports.

“It’s a shame because it cost us a podium. It cost us a race where we stayed patient after were pushed off in the first lap at the first corner.”

Norris followed that strong criticism by suggesting the stewards had been inconsistent with their dealings of their duels over the day.

“He also went off the track,” he argued to Sky Sports. “If he goes off the track, clearly he’s gone in way too hard and also gained an advantage doing what he did.

“He defends by going off track, he overtakes by going off track … the rules are the rules.”

Even the stewards appeared to acknowledge Verstappen played a role in creating the mess Norris ultimately paid for.

“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, [Norris] had little alternative other than to leave the track because of the proximity of [Verstappen], which had also left the track.”

But the stewards also explained clearly why the penalty had been given.

“[Norris] was not level with [Verstappen] at the apex. Therefore under the driving standards guidelines [Norris] had lost the ‘right’ to the corner. Accordingly, as [Norris] left the track and returned in front of [Verstappen], it is deemed to be a case of leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage.”

That fundamentally explains all other incidents in the race that did or did not receive penalties.

Verstappen’s bold move at the first corner to pass Norris on the first lap saw him ahead at the apex. He wasn’t punished for defending against Sainz later that lap because he was likewise ahead at the apex.

George Russell copped a penalty for barging Valtteri Bottas off track because he hadn’t made it to the apex ahead.

That doesn’t mean the decision to penalise Norris wasn’t contentious, nor any of the other rulings.

While the guidelines are clear, this particular incident highlights the impossibility of policing wheel-to-wheel racing in Formula 1 with black-and-white rules.

The guidelines exist because the stewards have previously been criticised for inconsistency. But the guidelines also mean that there’s no room for the grey area into which this incident clearly falls.

Norris undeniably reaches the apex second and then overtakes off the track. But is he to blame if Verstappen rolls off the brakes to beat him to the apex knowing that he won’t be able to subsequently make the corner?

To ask that question another way, is this a more satisfactory outcome than at the 2021 São Paulo Grand Prix, where Verstappen did the same thing to Lewis Hamilton, sending both off the track, but held the position as a result without penalty?

There are two conclusions.

The first is that every grey-area decision will make someone unhappy.

The second is the age-old wisdom that natural deterrents — grass, gravel, barriers — rather than endless tarmac run-off would have meant this incident could never have happened in the first place.

WHY DID McLAREN LEAVE IT TO CHANCE AT ALL?

But even with all that said, the incident happened with four laps still to go. It didn’t need to be the end of the fight.

McLaren has been criticised for not playing it safe — for not telling Norris to give the place back and try again.

“The rules are very, very clear,” Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner told Sky Sports. “You can see he goes out of track limits at 12, clearly off the circuit.

“There was always going to be doubt about that. For us it looked like a slam dunk, so why take that risk?

“To have that pace advantage, he could’ve quite easily in another lap done it again but up the inside rather than the outside.”

Of course that’s easier said than done — Norris had been trying to get past Verstappen for almost 10 laps at that point.

Norris also got within 0.942 seconds of neutralising the penalty, finishing 4.058 seconds ahead of the Dutchman.

McLaren, however, was adamant that it had reviewed the situation and was secure in the legality of the move.

“We double checked that both cars went off track, so for us there was no doubt that the manoeuvre was correct,” Stella said.

Quite apart from the matter of overtaking off the track, It’s an open question whether this is the way these sorts of incidents should be decided.

In a previous era of the sport the race director used to tell teams to instruct their drivers to hand places back to avoid matters going to the stewards.

The FIA’s current position it to leave it in the hands of the teams to decide what their conscience tells them. Sometimes they’ll get it wrong, incurring a penalty.

In this case McLaren got the call wrong. Having been outraced on the track, it was then outfoxed on the pit wall.

If the problem is an overbearing race control and stewards office, then surely this is the better outcome.

But then again, would the United States Grand Prix have been better served by the positions being switched on the track and Norris having a second crack rather than a penalty applied after the race?

Both could be defended as the purer sporting spectacle.

FERRARI BACK IN THE CONSTRUCTORS CHAMPIONSHIP FIGHT

While Norris’s title campaign faces twilight in the west, in the east a three-way fight for the constructors championship is dawning.

After Ferrari won in Italy and came close to victory in Azerbaijan, both its drivers warned against reading too much into the team’s improving results.

The first four races after the mid-season break were all run on highly particular circuits, most of which played to the SF-24’s specific strengths and none of which would have exposed the bouncing weakness that was largely responsible for the team’s mid-year drop-off.

Wait until Austin, they said, where the typical Circuit of the Americas would provide a fulsome test of the curative upgrades the team has been brought to the car in the last handful of races.

The outcome couldn’t have been any more emphatic, with Ferrari dominating the race.

“It’s a big day for the team and obviously a very big for Ferrari in general,” Sainz told Sky Sports. “I think we demonstrated we were the fastest on track in race pace, and quite comfortably actually.”

Ferrari had been deliberate about the way it went about its weekend. It brought no upgrades, focusing only on what it already had, and while it lacked a headline result until Sunday, it was clear the car was competitive on all three days.

It was caught out by the soft tyres in sprint qualifying on Friday, but in the sprint race the following day Sainz was arguably the fastest driver in the closing laps as other drivers’ tyres wilted.

Sainz then came close to at least a front row start before qualifying was called off thanks to George Russell’s crash.

In the race there was no doubt. Both drivers got great starts. Leclerc took the lead out of the first turn and wasn’t seen again. Sainz pulled off a one-stop strategy with a very early first tyre change, wielding his car’s gentle rubber usage to his massive advantage.

The one-two result is more than just a massive shot in the arm. It’s made a material difference to the team’s standing in the championship.

It’s now just eight points behind second-place Red Bull Racing on the title table.

It’s also only 48 points behind leader McLaren.

To put these margins into context, Ferrari outscored RBR by 22 points and McLaren by 21 points.

Given relative form — and in particular the form of their respective drivers — Ferrari could demote Red Bull Racing to third as soon as this weekend’s Mexico City Grand Prix.

McLaren’s margin is more considerable, but given the larger swings possible on the teams title table, it’s hardly comfortable.

“That’s the target,” Leclerc told Sky Sports. “It’s an optimistic target, but I’d rather see it that way than targeting anything else. We’ll go for it and see where we end up at the end of the season.”

The drivers championship might be all but resolved in Verstappen’s favour, but the constructors championship is coming alive just in time to save the season.

PÉREZ WILL COST RED BULL RACING THIRD IN THE STANDINGS

If — when? — Red Bull Racing drops to third in the constructors championship, it really will be for only one reason.

Sergio Pérez entered another deeply troubled chapter into his 2024 diary of underperformance in the United States.

There are a few key indicators that demonstrate just how bad his race was.

The first is that he finished 39.66 seconds behind Verstappen at the flag.

Both ran the same strategy, and while Pérez could argue he lost time in traffic in the first stint after starting the race ninth, Verstappen lost time battling Norris at the end.

The second troubling indicator is that he was beaten by George Russell on the last lap of the race.

Not only did Russell start from pit lane, but he also had to serve a five-second penalty at his pit stop.

Pérez should have had the faster car. Even if he didn’t, the Mercedes and Red Bull Racing machines are close enough matches that this sort of recovery shouldn’t have been possible for Russell.

In trying to explain the deficit, Pérez put it down largely to circumstance.

“We just lacked pace the whole weekend,” he said. “It hasn’t been a pretty straightforward weekend, so I have plenty of work to do.

“The upgrade seems to be quite a thing, especially in the high speed. I didn’t have the complete upgrade, so that’s part of it.

“The rest was just car balance. I don’t know how much having the total package would have put us back in contention.”

Even if the cars were in slightly different specification, it’s improbable that these were worth the average difference of 0.7 seconds per lap.

Certainly Horner didn’t use it as an excuse, not for the first time this season having to carefully choose his words in summing up Pérez’s performance on a weekend the car was capable of so much more.

“For Checo we really need to have the delta between the two drivers closer, because you could see two Ferraris, two McLarens — they’re hunting in pairs,” he said.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but Red Bull Racing’s nosedive down the championship order has shown up the decision to stick with Pérez at the mid-season break as a mistake.

While there are valid reasons not to have put Daniel Ricciardo in the car — and making a change and still losing the championship arguably would have looked worse than retaining the status quo — the team will surely reflect on the season wondering what a refreshed driver line-up could have achieved.

It’s also unfortunate this result should come just days before Pérez returns to Mexico for his home grand prix.

Fortunately, however, there was another Red Bull star shining in the Lone Star State.

LAWSON’S BIG DEBUT TURNS THE SCREWS

Little was expected of Liam Lawson on his first weekend back in the car replacing Daniel Ricciardo. Not only had he not raced in about a year, but he started at the back of the grid with an engine penalty, limiting his potential.

He responded by gaining 10 places on his starting position and scoring two points for ninth.

The race couldn’t have gone any better.

More remarkable still — and the third damning indicator for Pérez’s weekend — is that he finished just 11.491 seconds behind the Mexican.

In other words, Lawson was four times closer to Pérez than Pérez was to Verstappen at the chequered flag.

Given the chasm in performance between the RB and Red Bull Racing machines, that’s some achievement.

“Today was good — today was really, really good,” Lawson told Sky Sports. “We made a big step with the car yesterday, but you never know if it’s going to be the same in the race, but thankfully it was.”

Lawson’s race was run to a contrastrategy that paid big dividends. Starting on the hard tyre, he grabbed four places on the first lap and then moved forward, all the while finding more pace on the ageing rubber, until he switched for mediums on lap 36.

His progress in the first stint was so strong that he ended up net ninth after the stop, a position he defended to the flag.

He even beat teammate Yuki Tsunoda, who started 10th. The Japanese driver was frustrated over team radio to see Lawson rejoin the race from his sole pit stop ahead of him, and while his five-second penalty was partly to blame, as was the Kiwi lucking into having the better strategy, his new teammate also simply got more from the car.

It’s a performance that didn’t escape Horner’s attention.

“I thought he jumped in and looked like a veteran, to be honest with you,” he told Sky Sports. “He’s a great racer. He can be very happy with that drive today. I thought he drove a great grand prix.

“Staring 19th, finishing in the points, some great overtakes — he should be pleased with that. He’s a tough, hard racer.”

Ironically a strong performance like this could heap more pressure on the Kiwi than mere average ones.

He’s understandably refused to be drawn into the speculation, but few believe he’s actually racing to keep his seat next year. It’s Pérez’s seat that’s on the line for him.

The more he performs like this, the more that will be expected of him as a Red Bull Racing candidate — particularly as Pérez fails to arrest his lack of form.

“I know that they have an expectation on me, but at the end of the day I’ve got an expectation on myself as well to do a job,” Lawson deflected. “I want to stay in Formula 1 and have a full-time seat next year, and these races are my key to doing that.

“I’m taking it weekend by weekend. This weekend was strong. We need to now focus on Mexico. I’m well aware of obviously the expectation they have on me, but at the end of the day it’s been like that since I was 16 years old as a junior. They’ve always put that pressure on us. Realistically it’s not different to that.

“I spoke to both Christian ad Helmut, and they were positive. They were happy. They said well done. But I guess at the same time that was the expectation they had on me.”

How he fares for the rest of the season will be fascinating.