AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) -Red Bull's Max Verstappen dominated the U.S. Grand Prix from pole position on Sunday, leading every lap to take another significant chunk out of Oscar Piastri's Formula One championship lead on a perfect weekend in Texas.
McLaren's Piastri finished fifth with his teammate and closest rival Lando Norris second after passing Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, last year's winner, five laps from the chequered flag.
Piastri now leads Britain's Norris by 14 points with five rounds and two sprints remaining, while Verstappen has slashed his gap to the Australian to 40 after being 104 behind at the end of August.
Verstappen also won the Saturday sprint from pole position at Austin's Circuit of the Americas, while the McLarens collided and retired, on aweekend of maximum points for the four-times world champion.
McLaren have already sealed the constructors' title.
VERSTAPPEN SAYS THE TITLE CHANCE IS THERE
"For sure, the chance is there," Verstappen said of the title battle. "We just need to try and deliver these weekends until the end.
"We will try whatever we can. It's exciting," he added after his third win in the last four races and 68th of his career.
Piastri said he still had full confidence in his ability to become Australia's first champion since Alan Jones in 1980, and no worries.
"I'd still rather be where I am than the other two," added the 24-year-old.
Norris lost out to Leclerc at the start and then took 21 laps to find a way back past as the Monegasque, on the faster but less durable soft tyres, held a defensive masterclass.
Leclerc then battled with Lewis Hamilton, who started on mediums, before pitting on lap 23 and coming back out in ninth place with his teammate moving up to third and Piastri to fourth.
Verstappen by then was 10 seconds down the road from his closest rival.
Once the rest of the frontrunners had made their pitstops, Leclerc was again second on the road - but more than six seconds behind Verstappen - with Norris third and having to overtake all over again with a track limits warning hanging over him.
Job done, Norris pulled away and finished 7.9 seconds behind Verstappen and 7.4 ahead of the Ferrari.
"It was tough. We did everything we could," he said of a battle that gave the fans some excitement as Verstappen completed lap after lap largely absent from the global television feed.
"I expected a slightly easier second attempt to get through, but it wasn’t the case. Charles drove a very good race. It was good fun, good battles. So we have to take second. Not a lot more we could’ve done today."
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella said, however, that Norris could have fought for the win had he not been held up by the Ferrari.
Hamilton was fourth, with Piastri just 1.1 seconds behind, and George Russell - winner last time out in Singapore - taking the chequered flag in sixth for Mercedes.
Red Bull's Yuki Tsunoda finished seventh, ahead of Sauber's Nico Hulkenberg and Haas's Oliver Bearman. Fernando Alonso took the final point for Aston Martin.
The virtual safety car was deployed on lap seven when Mercedes' Italian rookie Kimi Antonelli and Williams' Carlos Sainz collided, with the Spaniard retiring after trying to overtake on the inside for seventh place.
Stewards handed Sainz a five-place grid penalty at next weekend's Mexican Grand Prix, plus two penalty points, for causing the collision.
Sainz's teammate Alex Albon had also been caught up in a first corner collision with Sauber's Brazilian rookie Gabriel Bortoleto.
The weekend was declared a heat hazard, although the air temperature during the race was lower than feared at around 28.6 degrees Celsius (83.5 Fahrenheit).
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Pritha Sarkar and Lincoln Feast.)
