Max Verstappen sends six-word message to Oscar Piastri and McLaren as title fight ignites

Max Verstappen declared, "We'll just try whatever we can", when asked about his title chances after the United States Grand Prix. The reigning world champion swept the weekend in Austin, taking a huge chunk out of Oscar Piastri's Drivers' Championship advantage.

Fresh from an exceptional lights-to-flag triumph in the sprint race on Saturday, Verstappen defended his pole position to perfection at Turn One on the opening lap. From there, things panned out in an ideal fashion. Charles Leclerc got ahead of Lando Norris in the battle for second, slowing the Brit down and allowing the Dutchman to generate a lead, all while managing his tyres.

From there, Verstappen went unchallenged. His lead bounced between eight and 11 seconds during the Grand Prix as Norris scrapped to get back past Leclerc. Piastri, meanwhile, found himself stuck in fifth place before narrowly missing out on overtaking Lewis Hamilton on the final lap. With five rounds of the season to go, the gap now stands at just 40 points.

"Yeah, for sure, the chance is there," Verstappen told Martin Brundle in the post-race interviews. "We just need to try and deliver these kinds of weekends until the end. We'll just try whatever we can. It's exciting, and I'm just very excited to the end."

Until this weekend, Red Bull had played down the title race, but now there is no denying that the reigning world champion could still add a fifth successive crown to his collection, despite being over 100 points behind Piastri earlier this summer.

Piastri doesn't only have Verstappen to worry about, either. Norris' late-race pass on Leclerc for second place means that the gap between the two McLaren team-mates has been trimmed to just 14 points. Moreover, the Australian has been out-scored by his colleague in each of the last four Grands Prix.

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Looking back at his battle with Leclerc, he told Brundle: "Finally made it through, took long enough. But it was a good battle with Charles; he fought hard, and it was tough.

"We did everything we could. Charles drove a very good race. It was good fun, good battles. But I'll take second as there was not a lot more I could have done."

The title fight resumes in Mexico City next weekend, and McLaren will have their work cut out to beat a Red Bull team who have been strong historically at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. Verstappen has won five of the last seven Grands Prix at the track, making him the circuit record holder in that respect.