Austin’s Turn 1 did what it always threatens to do: swallowed two front-row contenders and spat out a mess.
McLaren’s sprint Saturday unraveled before it even began to breathe. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri started P2 and P3 at the Circuit of the Americas, only to be out by the first corner after a chain-reaction tangle that also left Nico Hulkenberg fuming and Fernando Alonso at the heart of the post-race finger-pointing. Max Verstappen, safely clear of it all from pole, disappeared up the road and won the Sprint without a speck of papaya on his visor.
The sequence looked simple, then wasn’t. Norris led the orange duo into that steep left-hander. Piastri took the classic COTA wide arc to undercut his teammate on exit. On his inside, Hulkenberg had committed. And underneath Hulkenberg, Alonso arrived late and aggressive. Three into one doesn’t go; four is fatal. Contact flicked Norris, Piastri’s car snapped, and McLaren’s afternoon plans were extinguished before the first sector.
Initially, McLaren CEO Zak Brown was hot on the radio and hotter in the pen, calling Hulkenberg’s move “amateur hour” and insisting the Sauber driver had “no business” being where he was. Hours later, after reviewing the angles, Brown walked it back. The blame wasn’t Hulkenberg’s, he conceded. It wasn’t his drivers’, either.
Red Bull’s Helmut Marko saw it much the same—just with a sharper edge. In his view, Alonso’s late lunge triggered everything that followed. A dive, a squeeze, a ricochet. A first-corner classic. Racing incident, he said, with the McLarens blameless. Hard to argue when you slow it down: Alonso takes the inside, Hulkenberg leaves room, Piastri commits to the cutback—and the geometry closes like a trap.
Hulkenberg, who’d started an excellent fourth and ended up 13th, accepted Brown’s U-turn but was left gnashing his teeth at the points that got away. He noted Alonso was in his blind spot and that Piastri cut back “very suddenly,” leaving no escape. A decent haul was on; instead, it was “would have, could have, should have.”
For McLaren, the galling bit is the context. Two weeks ago, Norris and Piastri had their flashpoint in Singapore, prompting firm reminders about the papaya code of conduct. Then Austin serves up teammates interlocked again—this time through no intent of their own. Damon Hill called it out for what it was: irony with a side of inevitability at Turn 1. He reckoned Hulkenberg was drawn in a touch deep, boxed by Alonso on the inside and blindsided by Piastri’s switchback. There wasn’t anywhere left to turn.
Under the noise sits a few useful truths. COTA’s opening corner is a magnet for heroics because it invites them—broad, uphill, blind on entry, and forever tempting drivers into optimistic gaps that don’t survive the apex. You can plan a switchback, you can park it on the inside, but when three cars overlap and a fourth tries to make it work, physics writes the final line.
McLaren’s zero in the Sprint stings, even if the headline points are saved for Sunday. Norris has been the metronome this season; Piastri, the knife. They had the pace to harry Verstappen over 19 laps. Instead, Verstappen got a free run, and the title picture (and garage mood) shifts by degrees. They won’t dwell—there’s a Grand Prix coming—but it’s a squandered chance on a day they’d earned track position the hard way.
Don’t expect fireworks from the stewards or lingering feuds from the drivers. This was one of those first-corner mosaics where everybody is sort of right and nobody is entirely wrong. Alonso went for it. Hulkenberg held his ground. Piastri tried the textbook move. Norris turned in as the lead McLaren must. And the net result was carbon splinters and a papaya double DNF in a 30-minute race that was supposed to be about risk-managed rewards.
What matters now is how McLaren channel the frustration. The car’s quick. The starts have generally been clean. Their drivers know the brief. If anything, Marko’s “innocent this time” line is the quietest compliment of all: McLaren didn’t beat themselves. Turn 1 did.
As for Hulkenberg, Sauber’s flashes are becoming a theme. When they qualify up there, they can live there—assuming they keep their noses clean. That’s the leap they need to make. And Alonso? He’s made a career out of seeing a wedge where others see a wall. Sometimes it’s genius. Sometimes it’s shrapnel.
Austin got the latter. Sunday offers everyone a reset. Same hill. Same left-hander. Same invitation to try something brave. Don’t blink.
