2025 United States GP: Max Verstappen’s title hunt goes on, Oscar Piastri continues to struggle, Ferrari podium reignites Constructors’ P2 battle, and more

F1 began the Americas leg in Austin at the iconic Circuit of the Americas, home to the United States Grand Prix, on Sunday, October 19. 

With Max Verstappen still in the hunt for a fifth world title win, leader Oscar Piastri struggling, and plenty of incidents throughout the weekend, there is yet again a lot for F1 fans to discuss. 

Sports News Blitz’s F1 writer, Henry Eccles, takes a look at five of the biggest talking points to come out of the United States GP. 

Max Verstappen’s hunt for fifth world title goes on

After two wins in three races, the question on everyone’s minds coming into the US GP remained the same: can Max Verstappen actually win the Drivers’ title? 

Well, after yet another completely dominant display at the weekend, even the man himself has now admitted that “the chance is there.” 

Starting Saturday’s Sprint on pole, Verstappen got away from the opening lap chaos that saw both the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri crash out, and after surviving a daring dive from George Russell at Turn 12, the Dutchman finished ahead in P1. 

Later on, despite missing out on the chance to set a final lap time in Q3, Verstappen again managed to achieve pole position, nearly three tenths ahead of Norris, and critically, four places ahead of struggling championship leader Piastri in P6. 

There was simply no stopping Verstappen in the race. The four-time world champion avoided any trouble on the opening lap and stayed there with yet another supreme drive, finishing almost eight seconds ahead of Norris. 

The Briton may have been able to challenge Verstappen, the MCL39’s lack of tyre degradation a key strength around tracks like Austin, but he had been held up by a fantastic defensive display from Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. 

And so, with Piastri also struggling to recover from his poor qualifying, Verstappen’s hopes and dreams of a fifth Drivers’ title are now seriously alive. 

At the season restart at Zandvoort, the gap between Verstappen in P3 and Piastri was 104 - now, Verstappen trails the Aussie by just 40 points. 

After his controversial collision with George Russell and subsequent P10 finish at June’s Spanish GP, Verstappen ruled out his title chances, but after Austin, he has most certainly changed his tune. 

"The chance is there,” Verstappen said post-race.

“We just need to try to deliver these weekends to the end of the year, so yeah, we'll at least try whatever we can. It's exciting, and I'm just very excited to the end.”

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Oscar Piastri under serious pressure

Since his disastrous weekend at Baku, where he crashed out in both Q3 and the opening lap of the Grand Prix, Piastri has not looked his cool, calm and collected self.

In Singapore, he finished P4 behind Verstappen and Norris, who overtook his team-mate on the opening lap and was well in the fight for P2 with the Dutchman. 

Piastri, meanwhile, was let down with a slow pit stop and drove a lonely race, never really threatening to challenge for a podium place. 

In Austin, his woes continued. 

Having been taken out alongside Norris in the opening lap chaos of the Sprint, a poor qualifying then left Piastri with a lot of work to do on Sunday, but with McLaren tipped to do well in the Texan heat, a podium was surely on the cards. 

And yet, despite getting ahead of Russell at the first corner, it was another lonely race for Piastri.

The Australian kept the Mercedes driver at bay but never looked like fighting for anything other than his eventual P5 finish. 

In comparison, while it arguably took him too long to do it, Piastri’s team-mate Norris did get ahead of Leclerc, with the general consensus being that he could have won the race had things gone slightly differently on the opening stint. 

While a lot of the focus is rightfully on Verstappen’s blistering form, Norris should also worry Piastri, with last season’s runner-up now only 14 points behind in P2. 

Piastri, however, is still confident he’s doing everything right to win his first Drivers’ title. 

“Obviously, Max is closing in and so is Lando, but the gap has not been comfortable at any point this year,” he explained post-race. 

“Yes, it has been a bit bigger at certain points, but at no point has it felt like I could relax or sit back.

“My mentality hasn't changed, and it certainly won't now. I'm just trying to do the best job I can every weekend and naturally, the results will take care of themselves.”

Leclerc podium revives Ferrari’s P2 hopes 

With Mercedes winning at Singapore and a Verstappen-inspired Red Bull piling up the points, Ferrari could easily end the season in P4, which would be their worst result since their dismal 2020 campaign. 

But a strong weekend in Austin for both Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton has given Ferrari some hope that they can still achieve P2 in the Constructors’, with the Scuderia now just seven points behind Mercedes. 

After a tricky start to the weekend in free practice, Hamilton and Leclerc finished P4 and P5 respectively in the Sprint, with the former qualifying P5 for the Grand Prix, and Leclerc in P3 come Sunday. 

Leclerc was particularly impressive this time around, with his gamble to start on Soft tyres paying dividends at the start of the race.

The Monegasque driver sent his SF-25 around the outside of Norris at Turn 1 to move into P2. 

What followed was something of a defensive masterclass from Leclerc, staying ahead of Norris for 21 laps with some excellent car placement in the tight final sector at COTA. 

While eventually passed by the faster McLaren, and his team-mate shortly after, Leclerc again found himself in P2 after all the pit stops.

The Monegasque, however, had to settle for the final podium spot after Norris got ahead again with five laps to go. 

On his battle with Norris, Leclerc said: “I enjoyed it. Unfortunately, today I lost out at the end, but I had fun in the car.”

“I'm very happy overall because it has been a tough second part of the year, and to be back on the podium here after what was a difficult FP1 with a gearbox problem, we did well, so I'm happy.”

It was also a very competitive weekend for Hamilton, arguably his most positive yet in Ferrari red, after he finished P4 again in the race. 

On the same weekend, he became the first driver ever to reach 5000 points. He also picked up the unwanted record of the most race starts for Ferrari without a podium finish, but he did not let that dampen his spirits on a weekend with “a lot of positives.” 

“I'm finally feeling like I'm on top of the car,” he said.

“I think we still have some improvements we could make. We can definitely extract more, particularly on my side, because qualifying wasn't as good as I had hoped and the start wasn't great.

“There are always areas to improve, but it's positive going into the next race, so I hope we can have an even better weekend.”

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Highs and lows for Williams 

After his first podium finish for Williams in Baku was followed by an excellent P10 to P18 recovery drive in Singapore, Carlos Sainz looked set to have another strong weekend in Austin. 

And it got off to a fantastic start, F1’s ‘Smooth Operator’ was back on the rostrum after Saturday’s Sprint, taking advantage of the first lap mess to move up from P7 to P3. 

His team-mate Alex Albon also got into the points on Saturday, improving on his P9 Sprint qualifying finish to score P6. 

But that was just about it in terms of positives for Williams’ weekend, with Albon failing to get out of Q1 thanks to a track limits violation, and Sainz only able to qualify P9.

Sainz was still in a decent position for points, but those hopes were dashed after a race-ending collision with Kimi Antonelli at Turn 15 just seven laps in. 

The Spaniard had made a similar move brilliantly on the inside of Ollie Bearman on Lap 2, but Antonelli did not see it coming this time - the incident instantly ended Sainz’ race and later saw him given a five-place grid penalty for the next race in Mexico. 

Despite costing his team points, Sainz defended his decision to go for the move. 

“It's always the same with racing. I could have played it safe, been in P8, not tried a move on Kimi and followed him to the flag and brought four points to the team and celebrated that,” he said. 

“In the end, when you are racing, you always want more, you always go for it. I went for it with Ollie, and it worked perfectly fine. It's a corner where I have done multiple overtakes in the past, and I've never crashed. This time around, with Kimi, it didn't quite work out. So it is what it is.”

Albon was also not without any incidents, even though he did finish the race. 

The Thai driver spun out at the opening corner on the first lap after contact with Gabriel Bortoleto, and struggled from there to get back into the points, eventually finishing P14.

“A weekend to forget for me. I just felt a bit out of rhythm and never really comfortable with the car,” Albon said. 

A much-deserved points finish for Nico Hülkenberg 

The main beneficiary of that Sainz-Antonelli incident was Sauber’s Nico Hülkenberg, who had been through his own ups and downs throughout the weekend. 

It was a sensational start for the German veteran, shocking everyone with his P4 finish in Sprint qualifying.

But after colliding with Piastri at Turn 1 of the Sprint, Hülkenberg was quickly out of the points and could only finish P13. 

Qualifying P11 for the Grand Prix, he was “determined to bounce back” in Sunday’s race and was rewarded for a strong drive with a P8 finish.  

“Obviously, we had a bit of help from Carlos to get a little bit more than 10th, but we had good race pace,” Hülkenberg said. 

“I think it was a clean race, clean execution, so l'm happy after all.”

The points finish at COTA was Hülkenberg’s first since his maiden podium finish at Silverstone in July, and moved him into P9 in the Drivers’ standings. 

Looking ahead to Mexico, however, the 38-year-old admitted his pace at the weekend was “unexpected.” 

“It's a very different track, very different challenges there, so I don't know,” he said. 

“I don't want to make any predictions. I'll just let myself surprise myself with how it feels on Friday when we roll out.”

Next up for F1 is the Mexican Grand Prix weekend, taking place at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez on October 24-26.

The race gets underway on Sunday, October 26 at 8pm UK time, with fans able to catch all the action live on Sky Sports F1.

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