The build-up to the weekend has been dominated by the \u201cconsequences\u201d imposed by McLaren on Norris after the team held him responsible for banging wheels with Piastri in Singapore a fortnight ago.<\/p>\n
That minor tap paled into insignificance compared to the carnage at turn one of Saturday\u2019s sprint in Austin as Norris was left with only three tyres on his car.<\/p>\n
Starting from third, Piastri \u2013 who leads Norris by 22 points in the championship standings \u2013 attempted to cut back up the inside of his team-mate but turned into Sauber\u2019s Nico Hulkenberg and, as a result, smashed into the rear left of Norris\u2019 car.<\/p>\n
Norris was spun round as his left-rear tyre was sent careering across the track. Piastri limped on briefly but suspension damage also put pay to his involvement in the 19-lap dash \u2013 where Max Verstappen clinched victory.<\/p>\n
McLaren\u2019s decision to involve themselves in the title fight by sanctioning Norris after Singapore will prompt questions over what they decide to do after this latest collision.<\/p>\n
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McLaren CEO Zak Brown told Sky Sports from the pit wall: \u201cThat was terrible. Neither of our drivers to blame there.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s some amateur-hour driving by some drivers up there at the front, (they) whacked out two guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Piastri said: \u201cWe both went pretty deep into turn one and I tried to cut back and got a hit, so obviously not a great way to start the day.\u201d<\/p>\n
McLaren have further cause for concern in the shape of Verstappen. The crash between the tussling papaya pair threw the door wide open to the Dutchman to claim victory as he looms ever larger in the championship picture.<\/p>\n
His eight points for winning the sprint means he has cut Piastri\u2019s advantage to 55 points and trails Norris by 33.<\/p>\n
Starting from pole, Verstappen was clear of the first-lap chaos \u2013 where Hulkenberg and Fernando Alonso were also eliminated \u2013 and he led away from George Russell at the safety-car restart.<\/p>\n
But Russell, fresh from penning a new Mercedes deal following his win in Singapore, was intent on making a fight of it as he lunged up the inside of turn 12 on lap 19 but failed to make the corner as both cars were forced off track.<\/p>\n
Verstappen pulled clear after that incident to claim a routine win as Carlos Sainz \u2013 starting from seventh \u2013 took an impressive third for Williams.<\/p>\n
Lewis Hamilton finished fourth ahead of Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc after diving past the Monegasque on lap nine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The build-up to the weekend has been dominated by the \u201cconsequences\u201d imposed by McLaren on Norris after the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,898,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-89572","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-latest-news-ticker","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}