McLaren’s title tilt met Texas turbulence before the Sprint even reached Turn 2.
An opening-lap tangle at the United States Grand Prix Sprint wiped out both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, after contact between Piastri and Nico Hülkenberg pitched the Australian into his teammate on the uphill blast to COTA’s Turn 1. Max Verstappen escaped the chaos and duly won the Sprint, trimming eight points from Piastri’s championship lead in the process.
The front of the grid looked like the season’s headline act: Verstappen on pole, Norris alongside, Piastri third. What followed was less Broadway, more demolition derby. Piastri initially probed the outside of Norris into the hairpin, then switched back to line up a slingshot on exit. That door, however, was already occupied by Hülkenberg’s Sauber. Contact flicked the McLaren onto two wheels and straight into Norris. Game over for both papaya cars before the field had even settled.
Zak Brown didn’t sugarcoat it. The McLaren Racing CEO called it “amateur hour” driving near the front of the field, and, after a brief review, pointed the finger squarely at Hülkenberg. In Brown’s view, the Sauber had no business stuffing itself into that sliver of real estate and made contact with Piastri’s left-rear.
Norris was out immediately; Piastri limped on briefly before McLaren pulled the car with suspension damage. The saving grace? It didn’t look catastrophic, which matters with qualifying still to come later in the day. “Fixable” was the mood music in the garage, even if the timing was far from ideal.
Team principal Andrea Stella, measured as ever, went for a different word than Brown’s “amateur” — prudence. With 244 grand prix starts on the clock, he argued, Hülkenberg should’ve exercised more of it in a first-corner mêlée with the title protagonists. No malice, Stella said, just a lack of restraint at the wrong moment. In other words: read the room at Turn 1.
It stings extra because this wasn’t just a Sprint sideshow. Piastri’s lead at the top of the standings took a direct hit thanks to Verstappen’s clean escape and straightforward run to the flag. In a season where fine margins have decided Sundays, throwing away points on Saturdays is a habit McLaren can’t afford — especially not when both cars are supposed to be policing the Red Bull up front.
The incident also reopened an old COTA conversation. That steep drag to a tight, blind left is an iconic start shot, but it’s a funnel with a short temper. Drivers know it. Teams preach it. And yet, every so often, elbows go out and good weekends go bad in the space of 200 metres. Today, it was McLaren left picking up the carbon.
If you’re looking for mitigation for Hülkenberg, you can argue Turn 1 offers half-chances that turn into mirages when the pack compresses. Still, this wasn’t a surprise squeeze or a last-second jink. The space was shrinking, the title contenders were right there, and Sauber’s man kept his foot in. Experience is supposed to save you from those misreads.
Inside McLaren, the focus switched fast to bodywork, wishbones and setup sheets. Early paddock whispers suggested the damage was contained to the corner of Piastri’s car that took the hit, which gives the team a fighting chance of presenting two fully sorted MCL39s for qualifying. But Sprint wrecks have a way of haunting the rest of the weekend — missed run plans, compromised tyre allocations, drivers starting Q1 with the edge taken off.
The broader picture? This championship has lurched back and forth between Verstappen and Piastri, with Norris often the fastest spoiler on Saturdays. When all three start at the sharp end, the series sings. When a first-corner clatter removes two of them, it feels like the audience is missing half the band.
McLaren will argue the headline shouldn’t be about risk-taking from a midfield car in the thick of title arithmetic. Others will say that if you’re racing, you’re racing — Sprint or not, first corner or not, reputations should never dictate racecraft. That debate’s as old as parc fermé. What isn’t up for debate is the scoreboard. Verstappen banked, Piastri bled, and Norris was collateral.
There’s time to reset. The car’s quick — we saw that on the grid and in the intent of the opening metres. If McLaren turns the spanners fast and calmly, there’s still a weekend to salvage and a title fight to protect. But on a day that began with papaya swarming the front row, it ended with Verstappen alone up the road and orange overalls trudging back to the garage. In 2025, that’s the kind of margin you regret in Abu Dhabi.
