Oscar Piastri arrived in Brazil bullish about his title chances, talking up his championship credentials despite conceding the lead at the last race for the first time since April.
He may yet be crowned world champion at the season’s end but at Interlagos he crashed out of his second successive sprint race.
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In Austin, there was the consolation that he took his team-mate Lando Norris with him. This time, his high-speed spin at turn two into the barriers on lap six was a solo effort leaving Norris clear to fend off a race-long challenge from Mercedes’s Kimi Antonelli for the win.
It stretched the Briton’s advantage to nine points in the standings ahead of the main race in São Paulo today where a DNF for either McLaren driver would be infinitely costlier with 25 points at stake for the win.
Such are the small margins in this title fight. Norris ran wide at turn two, collecting water on a damp but drying track but avoided spinning. A few seconds later Piastri did the same only to lose control of his car. In a chaotic few moments, Nico Hülkenberg and Franco Colapinto joined him in the same barriers and brought out a red flag.
Racing resumed as a rolling start, with McLaren opting to switch Norris on to the soft tyres. He was the only one of the front four to do so and it was a move which nearly backfired with him complaining about struggling with his rear tyres from lap 18 of the 24-lap race.
It enabled Antonelli to get within DRS range but Norris defended well and the smiling Italian was left to enjoy his best finish of what he called “a fun race”.
He crossed the line barely a second behind the race winner with double yellow flags waving after home favourite Gabriel Bortoleto did well to walk away unscathed from a nasty crash in which he was briefly airborne down the home straight.
Quite what the repercussions of this sprint prove to be in the title fight remains to be seen but, Piastri, for months the calm and dominant figure at the top of the standings, cannot afford further mistakes with four races and another sprint remaining.
For Norris, it continued his impressive latter half of the season as the model of consistency. He admitted to struggling with his tyres and the windy conditions. He said: “It was tough. That makes the win a little bit more rewarding … especially with Kimi here. He certainly wasn’t making my life easy.”
He also admitted McLaren had “got some homework to do”. Their previously dominant race pace has evaporated – the two Mercedes as well as Max Verstappen seem to be similarly matched – while the tyre degradation at this circuit has not previously tended to be an issue for the constructors’ champions.
It keeps the door ajar for Verstappen, who had led every lap of the last two sprint races but finished this one in fourth, a spot behind George Russell, to continue his late push for title No 5 despite increasing his deficit to Norris to 39 points.
The Dutchman was clearly not happy with the handling of the RB21, enduring a terse exchange with his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase over the team radio during the red-flag session when being advised how to improve the car.
Verstappen needs to recapture that winning sequence he strung together in the wake of the summer break or else he will watch the McLarens disappear into the distance.
An issue for Verstappen’s quest for points, at this circuit at least, is that Mercedes also look a threat for the win on race pace. And Antonelli, after struggling earlier in the season, has now beaten his more experienced team-mate at his last two track outings.
This sprint result also put Mercedes six points clear of Ferrari for second place in the constructors’ standings, the place differential worth an estimated £7m to a team’s coffers.
Photograph by Michael Potts/LAT Images